


The Fall (Look What You've Done)

by alicekittridge



Series: Visions of the Past, Glimpses of Life [4]
Category: Killing Eve (TV 2018)
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, POV Third Person, Present Tense, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2019-06-10
Packaged: 2019-06-19 18:10:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 15
Words: 51,622
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15515631
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alicekittridge/pseuds/alicekittridge
Summary: If she takes this fruit, there is no turning back.





	1. A Lesson in Distance

**Author's Note:**

  * For [viagiordano](https://archiveofourown.org/users/viagiordano/gifts).



> Anna's perspective on things, from beginnings to the end.  
> \--  
> Rated T for now but that's subject to change. Also, the violence doesn't come in till later.

_Do truth and lies hold the same power?_

_Are they designed to protect, or to destroy?_

 

* * *

 

_“Please forgive me,_ _for I’ve had unholy thoughts.”_

_“Please forgive me, for I’ve had unholy thoughts.”_

_“Please forgive me, for I’ve had unholy thoughts…”_

 

—

If you were to ask Anna Leonova what she enjoyed most about teaching, she would tell you it was nurturing the love of languages in her students. She liked the way learning something new could light a spark in someone’s eye, let them see the world through a new perspective. But most of all, she liked how, if a student had a certain connection to a language, it would bring out something in them. Sometimes confidence, sometimes a romantic side, or some other personality trait. It was like witnessing a transformation.

            Many different types of students have come through Anna’s door over the years. There were quiet ones, loud ones, messy ones and neat ones, all of them sociable in one way or another, no one who feared them because of strange vibes, as the claim went. Sure, there were fights, and enemies made, though it would sort itself out the next year or two, and whoever had had a row would be talking again.

            And there were always students who had some sort of fixation or fascination, though they never lasted long. Those who did said that Anna was a kind teacher, someone who was always willing to help despite complications. And she liked to think she was a little different than other teachers, a little more attentive to students’ needs. She’d been one once too, after all, and wanted to give them things she herself hadn’t received in her schooling. It’s what sets her apart.

 

—

This girl is different. Anna can see that as soon as the principal escorts her into her classroom. Dark hair, eyes a mix of colors, secondhand clothes.

            “Sorry, Mrs. Leonova,” the principal, Ms. Ivanov, says. “She’s new. Wanted to take your class.”

            “Hello,” Anna says, allowing a smile. The girl glances at her, looks away. Anna is shocked to see nothing expressive about her face. “Would you like to introduce yourself?”

            Nothing.

            “Her name is Oksana,” says Ms. Ivanov. “I’ll let you get back to lessons.”

            Twenty pairs of eyes flit between Oksana and Anna, eager for class to get on and for the girl to move. Anna says, “You can sit where you like.” Oksana takes a seat at the front of the class but nearest the windows that look out at the schoolyard below. The seat not near anyone.

            “All right, let’s continue. I want you to work in pairs for this translation, but each student must write on their own paper. You’re allowed to reference your verb conjugation sheet that we completed last week.” The students immediately pair off and her classroom grows loud with chatter. Oksana already has the necessary materials—the textbook and a composition notebook—but only the notebook is open. Anna goes to her and asks softly, “Is there a language you’re interested in, Oksana? Or one you already know aside from your native language?”

            “I’m interested in all of them.” Her voice is neutral, neither soft nor hard.

            Anna smiles. “Quite ambitious of you, wanting to learn all of them. Do you have a favorite?”

            She is silent for a moment, teeth working at her lip. “French,” she says at last.

            “Lucky for you, that’s the one we’re learning. How much do you know?”

            “Tiny bits.” Oksana looks to the other students, the ones who are paired off. “Do I have to work with someone?”

            “Not today,” Anna says. There’s no acknowledgement except the fingers drumming on the open notebook. “Why don’t you give it a little try? Page seventeen.”

 

—

“Oksana is a… very interesting girl.”

            Ms. Ivanov had called a meeting with the heads of each department to explain to them Oksana’s background, and now Anna is the only one left in the room. The radiator is hissing, and the lights above them buzz as if they’re about to burn out. Anna draws her jacket tighter, tucks her hands into the warmth underneath her arms. “What do you mean?” she says.

            “There is a bit of trauma in her past, and a history of violence. Her mother died of cancer and her father is also dead. Because of her history, many of the teachers are shying away. She hasn’t made many efforts to get to talk to people—”

            “It’s her first day,” Anna says, slightly taken aback. “You can’t expect a new student to talk to people when they’re taking it all in for the first time.”

            Ms. Ivanov bows her head. “I’m afraid we’ll have to be cautious with her.”

            “Don’t you think that would make her feel more ostracized here, stepping around her like she’s a dangerous animal?” Anna sighs. “I’m sorry, I won’t treat her that way. She may be different than the other students, Ms. Ivanov, but that doesn’t mean we be any less welcoming.” Anna gets up from the chair and leaves the tiny meeting-room without dismissal, walking quickly back to her warmer room in a state of disbelief. Never has she seen her colleagues so unwelcoming towards a new student. Always, they were kind, practically doting on them until they became used to the new environment, but with Oksana… Is it because of her history that they are so distant about her? Are they afraid of her even though they’ve only known her for a few hours? Afraid that, if something were to happen, that her violent tendencies would be directed at them?

            But all Anna sees, when she looks out the window at the schoolyard, is a strange girl with dark hair and books clutched to her chest standing out in the middle of a group of students that part around her like a river when it meets a rock.


	2. Of Broken Bones and Letters

When Oksana isn’t in her class, Anna glimpses her around the school, passing her in the hall, seeing her in the courtyard during lunch hour, catching her ghost as she leaves the library with another book. It’s been a few weeks since her arrival, and though she still doesn’t blend in, it seems she’s learning the ropes. Some students have attempted to talk to her; Anna’s seen a few of the popular girls approach her during lunch hour—when Anna allows herself to indulge in her one cigarette of the day—and say hello, and then they’re quickly turned away, either by Oksana’s words or by her lack of response. She prefers her solitude, her books. Sometimes Anna is tempted to walk up to her and ask how she’s doing, but then thinks better of it. She simply stands in the autumn sun and watches from afar until her cigarette is burned and she has to stub it out. Teachers are a part of students’ lives but not so intimately, are they? Unless there are moments of intimacy in the form of students coming up after class to ask for help, or at the end of a year to give gifts of appreciation?

            Anna isn’t sure how Oksana is faring in other classes, but in hers, she’s making improvements. She takes diligent notes in a different composition book, all in pen, and her classwork is so complete that it blows a few other students out of the atmosphere. She has a very distinct hand, letters looking as if she’s writing in italics on a computer. When grading papers she always finds herself shaking her head at the neatness of Oksana’s penmanship, wishing her own handwriting looked like that. And it was like Oksana had said on that first day of class, she knew a bit of French, and she was catching on quite quickly, but it was obvious that there were some parts she was struggling with, verb conjugation being one of them. Understandable, since it’s one of the most important things about French, and any language. There was also order of words in a sentence, and the order of verbs and nouns; every language differs in their order. A native speaker already has a grasp on this order; someone who is learning that language must acquire it.

            Perhaps, Anna thinks now, while grading today’s classwork translation, a little outside help would be useful. She used to do lessons for a fee, if it was agreeable with the student’s parents, but given that Oksana has neither parent nor grandparent nor much money, a fee won’t be necessary. She’ll give it a few more weeks—until Oksana has been here for a month—before approaching her about this.

            Her classroom is growing darker with the fading evening light. Her desk is illuminated by an old-fashioned desk lamp that looks more like a stand light a musician would use underneath the stage, and the desk itself is crowded with piles of papers and her school-issue computer. Anna circles a few mistakes on a student’s paper, puts the corrections and a few notes in the margins with red pen, and then sits back, rubbing her eyes. Sometimes she stays until seven o’clock grading papers or correcting lesson plans, fueled by both passion and restlessness, but tonight she feels… tired. Oddly so. Like her thoughts are weighing her down, those pesky things. She sets her pen aside and picks up her phone to call Max, tell him she’ll be on her way home.

            _“Dinner is already on the stove,”_ Max says when he picks up.

            “You’re an angel,” Anna says, thinking, as she always does when Max is the first one home, how lucky she is. “I’ll be a little late but I’m packing up now.”

            Minutes later she’s filing away the ungraded translations into their folder and putting it carefully into her briefcase. She glances at the graded pile, at the penmanship staring back at her, and puts that in her briefcase too.

            “This is Oksana’s? The new girl’s?” Max is holding the paper under the kitchen light, staring in a fascinated way.

            “Yes,” Anna replies. “It looks like a font, doesn’t it?”

            “Maybe not quite a font, but certainly old-fashioned.” He hands the paper back carefully, treating it like it’s an important and fragile document. “It’s impressive.”

            “Makes me wonder who taught her her letters.” She puts Oksana’s paper back into her briefcase.

            “How is she?”

            “Doing well. Still not making friends but… I suspect it’s what people like her are like. Quiet, reserved, observant. Intensely focused when they’re immersed in something they enjoy.”

            “People like her?” Max questions, turning back to the stove to flip the burner off.

            Anna’s mouth opens and closes several times. “People who are different,” she says at last. “Ones who have trouble expressing themselves, or who don’t seem to feel… I don’t know,” she sighs, feeling slightly guilty for talking about Oksana in this way even though it’s speculation based on her own observations. “She’s a sore thumb.”

            Max hums. His mind is already elsewhere, but it’s fine; she doesn’t know what else to say about Oksana, words exhausted but mind still turning. She washes her hands at the kitchen sink and realizes they’re shaky. She asks, “Is the soup ready?”

 

—

“Writing in a language is a good way to get a grasp on it, and to test your fluency in the written word but also your comprehension. So, with this in mind, I would like you to write something in French.” Anna writes the requirements on the blackboard: 1 page, about anything that comes to mind, to whomever you want. “This will be turned in for credit, so please don’t pack it away with your belongings at the end of class.”

            Sometimes, Anna writes with her students. She’s found a little joy in it and that it can be freeing. She isn’t a writer, not by a long shot; it takes a certain kind of person to be a writer, a certain skill that she doesn’t have, but she still enjoys it. And she can always tell who the writers are just by the way they word things, or how invested they are in their paper; she’s always impressed with how easily they seem to weave sentences together and with admirable skill. She glances at Oksana in her window seat and their eyes meet; her stomach jolts in the way it always does when she makes eye contact with someone, and she offers a little smile. Oksana blinks, her chest rises with a deep breath, and then she turns back to her work. Anna wonders if she’d been staring or if they’d just looked up at the same time.

            After she’s written her little segment, Anna makes her rounds, looking over shoulders to check progress. She gets to Oksana and the girl immediately folds her paper over and says lowly, “It isn’t finished.”

            “Sorry,” Anna says, stepping back a little. “Teacher’s habit.” Oksana glances at her and Anna can’t read the look on her face. Offended that someone would look over her shoulder? Displeased that someone was in her space? She moves on, hearing Oksana’s paper fold back and her ballpoint pen scratch away.

 

            Outside, the air is cooler. There are clouds starting to build up too, making parts of the courtyard softer, covering them in shade. Anna stands underneath a tree whose leaves are beginning to lose their green, smoking one of her Marlboros. Laughter and shouts and conversations float to her, as does the sound of gravel crunching under shoes, someone shifting on a bench. Looking over her shoulder is looking at Oksana, hair pulled back, absorbed in a hardback book whose paper cover is missing. It’s impossible to tell what she’s reading. But the book is dark, almost black, the pages stark white. She fingers one page between thumb and forefinger, and her teeth are worrying at her lip. It’s been a long time since Anna has last been that lost in a book; too many responsibilities eating her time, even when on holiday. Oh, to find such freedom again….

            She takes one last drag on her cigarette, which is nearly smoked to the filter, and tosses it into the finer gravel around the tree, grinding it out with the toe of one of her pumps. There’s fifteen minutes of lunch hour left, and she needs to prepare for the next class, with her advanced students. Once there, she studies the lesson plans, erases the chalkboard and wipes it clean with a wet paper towel, brings another almost-bursting file folder out and sorts through the graded work until she finds the right class. She’s putting the stack together with a paperclip when she hears commotion outside, muted by the thick glass windows. She goes over, looks down, sees a crowd of students gathered in a circle around two backpacks, some scattered belongings, and Oksana and a bigger male student. A teacher from the art department is tugging them apart.

            Anna flocks to her chalkboard and quickly scribbles a note to her advanced class, then rushes back down the two flights of stairs. By the time she gets outside, the crowd has dispersed and the teacher and Oksana and the boy are gone. She makes her way to the nurse’s office. The door is cracked and through it is Oksana, face bloodied up, her simple white shirt dotted with red, dark hair mussed, her nose already swelling. A nurse spots Anna and beckons her in, asking, “Are you her teacher?”

            “One of them,” Anna replies, eyes straying to Oksana no matter how many times she looks away. She looks like hell. “Is it broken?”

            “Afraid so,” says the nurse. “It’ll have to be set and splinted.” She disappears, possibly to prepare for the little procedure.

            “I should do this more often, if it gets you to talk to me,” Oksana says. Anna nearly gapes. The girl doesn’t seem to be affected by her injury.

            “You’ve wanted me to talk to you?”

            Oksana nods.

            Anna smiles, despite herself. “You don’t have to go to such extremes.”

            “I’m afraid I do. Don’t want the other brats listening in.”

            Anna scoffs. Brats? “Since we’re actually talking,” Anna steps forward, hand offered, “Anna Leonova.”

            Oksana shakes it; her grip is firm and her hand is slightly clammy. “Oksana Astankova.”

            “What happened?”

            “Teasing. Got too close. Made him regret it.”

            “How do you explain the nose?” Anna asks.

            “Called his mother a fat cow.” And for the first time, Anna sees amusement on Oksana’s face, the corners of her blood-caked lips tilted up in an almost-smile.

            Another student walks in, her right arm limp at her side, left hand clutching her shoulder. Oksana’s eyes stay on her for a moment, and then turn back to Anna. Anna says, “You should be careful with your insults. And I should be getting back to my class.” She moves to the door, then turns back. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

            At the end of the day, when she’s packing grading to take home, she finds Oksana’s assignment when it slips from the pile. She’d written a letter, and Anna’s name is at the top of it.

 

            She reads it in Max’s ridiculous chair with the cactus pillow. The blinds are open, letting in the golden evening light; a spotlight, cozy and warm, on the cheap, torn paper of Oksana’s composition book and her elegant hand. An oxymoron before her eyes. There are many sentences crossed out, and so the letter is only a few sentences long.

_Anna,_

_I thank you for your warmth when everyone else has been so cold. Being new is no walk in the park but a little kindness makes it feel like a pleasant stroll. I hope it becomes brighter the deeper I travel._

_Oksana_

            “Oh my god,” Anna says aloud. Her chest feels funny, like she’s got heartburn. Though there are some mistakes, Oksana’s French is decent, and the words are touching. Beautiful. She puts her hands to her face and realizes there’s heat there. (The last time she’d felt that was… when? Her wedding day, all attention on her as she walked the aisle wearing a dress from a time long passed, both nervous and elated to be the center of such attention by guests, but more so from Max, whose eyes were just as misted over as hers. That was twelve years ago.) She gets up, holding the paper, staring at the words and the scribbles. It should be graded, she thinks, mistakes circled and notes made, but to defile such a personal thing… She shakes her head, tucks it back into the folder where the other assignments are, deciding that she’ll grade them once Max has gone to bed.

 

            Sometimes she envies how quickly Max can fall asleep. His head hits the pillow, he closes his eyes, and then he’s asleep within seven minutes. He’s a sound sleeper and once slept through the fire alarm going off in their old apartment when their neighbor’s room down the hall had almost caught fire. Anna’s sleep habits depend on a lot of things; she sleeps less when her mind is occupied, and it takes her hours of shifting positions and pretending to be asleep to fall into forming dreams. In the early days, she would lean over and kiss him until it led to making love, and afterward she would curl up and be asleep within five minutes; but neither of them is in their twenties anymore, and their lives are so clustered that they only have time for chaste kisses and short hugs. Tonight had been an effort, and they’d kissed and kissed for minutes while Max had worked at unbuttoning her shirt; she’d only pulled away when his hand had found a breast, claiming there was too much work to do.

            “Sorry, there’s just a whole stack tonight,” she said.

            “Don’t stay up too late,” he murmured, and kissed her temple.

            She fixes herself a cup of tea and plants herself at the kitchen table, glasses on her nose, work spread out. It’s nine o’clock; she tells herself she’ll be in bed by eleven.

            Late nights have always been fascinating to Anna, whether she was occupied with work or simply staying up with a book. Outside sounds remind her that she isn’t the only one awake at these hours, that other people are going about their lives, not sleeping because of work or personal issues or because they’re in love. But at these hours the world feels unreal and time feels slow, as if she can feel each minute with the turn of the Earth on its axis. She reads, she circles, she makes notes, each paper set aside another chime of some invisible clock, until at last she reaches Oksana’s. Her red pen hesitates for a moment. She forces it down, and then begins to mark the mistakes. On the last half of the paper, Anna suggests Oksana review verb conjugation in detail, and practice making sentences with them and speaking them aloud. The final grade is a B. She reads over the words Oksana had written her, and once again that funny feeling makes itself present. It’s very like the cards she sometimes gets at the end of the year.

            Anna drifts off to sleep an hour later with thoughts of how to thank Oksana for the letter.

 

—

“Let’s step outside,” Anna says when Oksana comes to her classroom after school has ended for the day. “The weather’s lovely.”

            And indeed, it is. It’s a clear day and the sky is bright, with little puffs of cloud. The kind where you can smell autumn in the air. They find an isolated bench in the courtyard and Anna takes out her cigarettes. “Do you mind?” she asks.

            “Go ahead,” Oksana says, with a wave of a hand. Her nose is splinted and red and swollen, and underneath her eyes are a little bruised too. The boy must’ve packed a pretty good punch. Anna lights up and is sure to blow the smoke out the left side of her mouth. “Why did you start smoking?” Oksana asks.

            “The stress of school and my home life.”

            “Was yours not good either?”

            “Oh, it had its moments. Even if my parents were rigorous at times, I knew they loved me.”

            Oksana is silent, staring, waiting. She asks, “I’m not in trouble?”

            “No. I wanted to thank you for your letter.” She flicks ash off the end of her cigarette. “It came as a surprise.”

            “You said it could be whatever we wanted.”

            “I did, but even so…” She trails off. “I hope I haven’t upset you.”

            Oksana shakes her head, looking away at last, across the courtyard where a group of athletic girls stands, dressed down in gym clothes. “Did I upset you?”

            “No,” Anna says, smiling now. “No, you made me feel... pleasant.” Like she’d done something right. And high praise is always something that makes her feel good. She takes one last drag on her cigarette before stubbing it out, already near the filter and she had barely smoked it. “You’re doing well,” Anna tells her next, and she means it.

            Oksana lets out a soft, humorless chuckle, and says nothing. She lifts up her shirtsleeve and there’s a small silver watch around her wrist. She gathers her belongings, says a hasty, “I have to go,” and then she’s off across the courtyard, turning left and away from the school. If she’s no home to go to, Anna wonders, staring even after Oksana is out of her sight, where does she stay?

 

—

One of the things Anna likes most about autumn, besides the cooler weather, is the concert season. Summer is a good time, but it’s autumn when the people truly come out for such things. Concert halls all over the city put on different shows, from classic to contemporary, full orchestra or wind symphony or brass or duets, quartets, and quintets of various instruments, and operas. Theatres fill up for musicals and concerts that aren’t of the classical nature and plays. It’s the one thing about her life that has been consistent. From a young age she’d had a certain fascination with music and grew up hearing opera played around the house on records or the radio, and her parents, as strict as they were, took her to such concerts and, as a teenager, let her attend them with friends. She and Max used to go to concerts quite often in their younger years, but as their lives became busier, there became no time.

            She’s tidying her classroom after her advanced students had left in a hurry to start their Friday nights, humming along to a German opera playing from her computer, thinking about doing something wild and purchasing tickets for the same opera that’s going to be playing across town in two weeks. Telling Max “Just put work aside and come with me” and watching him dress in a black suit he hasn’t worn since the 90s. She’d fix his tie for him, because heaven knows the man can’t tie bowties for shit. She smiles at the memory of fixing it in their first bathroom. Yes, she thinks, I should just be reckless. Surprise him. Laugh at the look on his face, kiss him when he says yes.

            Anna puts the broom back and starts on her chalkboard, erasing the day’s writings and then wiping the dust away with a wet paper towel. The music changes to a song from the French opera _Carmen_. When the chalkboard is done, she finally sets aside all her cleaning supplies and begins to pack up grading for the weekend. She opens a drawer to get rubber bands and finds an apple inside it, still fresh, a deeper red, a Post-It attached in Oksana’s handwriting.

_A good start to the weekend_

            She bites into it and a soft, pleased moan escapes her throat at the sweetness of the apple, uncaring that the juice runs down her chin and onto her shoes.


	3. Indulging the Curious Cat

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry this took a little while; this story is requiring immense planning and outlining because of all the content and events that must happen. Thank you, as always, for reading, and for your patience!   
> The rating has been upped because of this chapter and its sexual content.

The light coming through the windows is wonderfully distracting and still holds warmth despite autumn being a mere week away; the classroom is warm too, but the air has been turned off. The sunlight falls right on Oksana, who, like a cat, doesn’t seem at all bothered by it. The sleeves of her secondhand shirt are rolled up to the elbows. Her dark hair is tucked behind her ears and shines and her eyes, normally so grey, look greener, brilliant, slightly squinted in focus at today’s writing assignment. Her face is still bruised from her fight. She’s biting her lip every few seconds, pen pausing after long minutes to either give her writing hand a break or to read something over before scratching it out in one smooth movement.

            Catching herself, Anna quickly tears her gaze away. Yes, she was simply staring off into space and happened to be looking right at Oksana when her mind began slipping. It happens sometimes, and not just to students. She scribbles a few more words into her leather-bound notebook and tucks it away in her desk. She wakes her computer to go back to browsing ticket options for the opera in three nights. Already she can hear the music swelling, almost like it’s begging her to come see it performed. It’s been a year since last she went to an opera. She hovers the mouse over the balcony tickets, hesitates for only a second, and clicks them. All that’s left to do is pay for them and print them.

            For the rest of class she catches up on grading for her advanced students, completely aware that Oksana is visible in the corner of her eye. It takes much self-control to not glance at her figure, which, Anna admits, is all too lovely when it’s in the sun, despite the bruises that’ve purpled her sculpture. And why is it Oksana her eyes drift to, of all people? There are better places for her eyes to be. But, as she had learned from literature and art classes, the eye is often drawn to beauty and things that stand out, and when her eyes find Oksana again, gazing out the window with her chin propped on a fist, she thinks that Oksana may very well be both.

 

            Anna strikes a match and raises it to her cigarette, but it slips from her fingers at the last moment and extinguishes itself in the gravel. She curses, goes to dig another out of the box, but Oksana is there first, one hand on Anna’s, a lighter in the other. Her heart catches fire as easily as the butt of her cigarette, burning and absorbing Oksana’s tender touch, nearly exploding when Oksana tells her, “You have very nice eyes.”

            “Thank you,” Anna says when Oksana pulls away, to both the compliment and the light. It was only a few seconds and it had felt like minutes. She takes a much-needed drag and blows the smoke sideways. She hopes the afternoon sunlight hides her hot cheeks. She steals a glance at Oksana, who is still looking at her. Her eyes are green-grey, alert, but something about them is hard.

            “What were you doing on your computer?” Oksana asks, in French.

            “Shopping.”

            “What for?”

            “Opera tickets.” Another drag, another exhale. “Do you like opera, Oksana?”

            “It sounds like dying animals.”

            Anna laughs. “I’m sure to some, yes.” Silence settles, and a breeze rustles the drying leaves on the tree above them.

            “I like national anthems,” Oksana says. “They all have the same beat but they sound so different. Don’t you think?”

            Anna hums.

            Another pause, and then Oksana begins to sing a dramatic version of _God Save the Queen._ Anna laughs, shoves her arm. “Stop! People will give us snake eyes, Oksana!” And she’s smiling now and oh, it’s a lovely smile, Anna realizes, wide and white. She stares even after the laughter dies away, wonders what would make Oksana smile like that again, if ever.

            “You sound happy when you laugh,” Oksana says. “It’s nice.”

            “You think I sound sad otherwise? I’m offended.” She flicks ash off her cigarette, realizes Oksana is giving her a rather serious look. “I’m not sad,” Anna says. “I’m content. I like where I am. I feel blessed.”

            Oksana blows through her lips. “Oh dear,” she sighs, “you’re one of those people.”

            “I won’t talk about it if it bothers you.”

            Silence. Then, “Why are you religious?”

            Anna shrugs. Her cigarette is almost down to the filter. “I was raised that way, but as I got older I found solace in it. It’s comforting to know I can talk to God, who is much wiser than I am about many things.” She takes one last drag on her cigarette and lets it join her burned-out match.

            “What would he say about your smoking habit?”

            “That He can smell me all the way from His kingdom.”

            They share a smile.

            “It may be a sign to quit, then,” Oksana says.

            Anna digs another cigarette out, puts it dramatically between her lips. “I’ll quit when there is nothing to stress about.”

            Once again Oksana lights it for her, and Anna swears her grey-green eyes stay on her mouth.

 

—

“You would think,” Anna says, plucking at Max’s poor attempt of a bowtie, “that you would be better at tying ties when you’ve worn them your whole life.”

            “My father tied them for me,” Max tells her.

            “What, until we got married?”

            “Sounds about right.”

            She shakes her head, kisses the corner of his mouth. “How useless you are.”

            “I’m good for some things. Taking you to spontaneous operas is one of them.” He watches her fingers. “It’s nice,” he adds softly.

            Anna agrees, most especially when they’re walking to the concert hall with her hand tucked in his arm. The evening is lovely, just cool enough to be pleasant, the light soft and blue, buildings sparkling silhouettes against it. It’s almost as if they’re living inside van Gogh’s _Starry Night_. Inside, the hall is large and welcoming, filled with the excited chatter of other well-dressed patrons, smelling like concrete and a mix of colognes and perfumes. The press of bodies, when they approach the entrance to the auditorium, nearly makes Anna overheat in her light jacket.

            “You all right?” Max murmurs.

            “It’s crowded,” Anna says. He draws her closer, puts a warm hand on the small of her back. “I forgot how crowded they could be.”

            “A year does strange things to memory.”

            The stage is intricate and dark and below it shine the lights for the orchestra, who are already mingling and picking up their instruments to tune them. Concert As and B flats hum from strings and brass and woodwinds, while light taps from timpani and other percussion instruments mix with them. They find their balcony seats and Anna feels like she’s in a different world. It’s why she’s always had a fascination with these sorts of things, how music had the ability to transport you to somewhere different until it had to end.

            “Oksana would hate this,” Anna says.

            “Really?”

            “She thinks opera sounds like dying animals. She likes national anthems. Kind of a strange thing to like; they’re all so…” She trails off, hands moving in search of the right word.

            “Patriotic?” Max suggests, with an air of disinterest.

            “Similar. You hear one, you’ve heard them all.”

            “I imagine she’d say the same about opera.” Max shifts, adjusts his suit jacket. “Is that where you are after school?”

            Something akin to hot steel settles in her stomach. “Oh Max, it’s nothing,” Anna says firmly. “We sit and talk while I have a smoke break. It’s how she practices her French.” Surely he knows that one of the ways to improve is to talk in that language? “It’s purely professional.” Lingering touches when helping with a light would say otherwise, wouldn’t they? But goddamn, of course a hand must help support a cigarette when being lit. That’s all it is. Help.

            The auditorium begins to darken. The orchestra tunes again, and then a spotlight appears on the dark stage, where a well-dressed man welcomes everyone, asks them to remain seated until intermission, tells them to enjoy the show. He leaves, the curtains part, and Max’s hand settles on Anna’s knee. She squeezes it.

            Vivid colors and costumes accompany the music, flying across the stage, staying still and subtle, so enticing that Anna has to wonder why Oksana hates this, if she’s ever been to one and not just heard it through someone’s radio. It’s different in person, when it’s being performed in front of your eyes. The meaning changes, becomes more significant, poignant. Everyone has a reason for being turned off to a certain genre of music. What’s Oksana’s reason? Did something happen, or is it as simple as “I don’t like the way it sounds?” Probably the latter, Anna thinks, eyes widening when the lead soprano holds her outrageous high note so that it rings above the rest of the chorus. Oksana would ask if someone had kicked her between the legs so that her voice would soar that high up, and then would tell Anna she would wait for her in the lobby until the performance was over.

 

            “What did you think?”

            They’re in the car, stuck in traffic and rain, which comes down in fat, heavy drops and sounds like a thousand hands drumming against metal and glass. Anna’s window is fogged up and cool to the touch when she places her hand against it.

            “I enjoyed it,” Max says. “That soprano was something else, wasn’t she?”

            “She was beautiful.” The voice of an angel, high yet warm.

            “Beautiful but her voice could shatter eardrums if we’d sat any closer,” Oksana would say, and Anna chuckles at the thought.

            “What?” Max asks.

            “Nothing, darling,” Anna says. “Just thinking.”

            “About her?”

            “Why do you sound angry with me?”

            He shrugs. His grip on the wheel is tighter. “You think about her a lot.” A statement, not a question.

            “You would too, if you knew her. I’m trying to—” She steels her tongue.

            “To what?”

            “Help her,” Anna says, in a softer tone. “I’m trying to help her.” But from what? With what? Languages? Belonging in a place that seems to reject her? What, Anna, what?

            “Why?” Max questions. “Why does she need your attention more than others?”

            “Because God would want me to, Max.” Her palms are suddenly clammy. “She came to school in need and no one, save me, stepped forward. They all waltzed into cowardice because they judged by what they read and they see a thorn bush when she’s blooming right before our eyes.”

            “All right,” Max says, raising his hands in surrender, “I’m sorry. Take a breath.” They stop at a light and he turns to her, eyes soft behind his glasses. “I’m only concerned about you, Anna.”

            She cups his face between her hands, sighing mightily. “You shouldn’t be. I’m fine.” She kisses his forehead. “Let’s go home.”

 

—

“The test is in a week, so you’ve plenty of time to prepare. There is a written portion and a speaking portion, the latter will be the focus of my grading.”

            The students groan, mumble amongst themselves how terrible tests are, how their speaking is worse than their writing. Anna passes around a study guide and announces, “There may be a reward for your hard work, so keep that in mind.” It makes them perk up more; her chest feels lighter when she sees the looks of relief on their faces.

 

            “Are you really going to reward them?” Oksana asks. It’s lunch break and they’re under their usual tree, taking in the groups of students talking or running about the schoolyard.

            “Tests are strenuous. Rewards make people feel nice.”

            “What is the reward?”

            “I was thinking cake.”

            Oksana blows through her lips. It seems to be a habit, now. “Let them eat cake,” she says. “You bake?”

            “Sometimes. Bread is my specialty, but I’ll make a cake for special occasions.” She takes a cigarette from her purse and puts it between her lips and once again Oksana lights it for her, touch light, hand smooth.

            “I’m sure it’s wonderful,” she says. Her eyes return across the yard and her posture straightens. “Excuse me.” She gets up, walks briskly to the fence that separates the yard from the sidewalk, approaching the girl that’d come into the nurse’s office with a wounded arm. She, too, has a cigarette, though is more secretive about it because students aren’t allowed to have them. Oksana lights it in the same manner she’d lit Anna’s. A simple gesture and yet it burns, hot steel settling in Anna’s insides. She’s a girl, Anna reminds herself when Oksana is walking back; she’s perfectly at ease to talk to whom she wants.

            “You like her?” Anna asks.

            “No. I was being chivalrous.” Oksana tucks her lighter away. “She likes me.”

            “How do you know?”

            “She wouldn’t stop looking at me in the nurse’s office.”

            Anna says nothing. She grinds her cigarette out half-smoked and brushes herself off. “I should go,” she says. “My advanced class has a test.” She feels Oksana’s eyes on her as she makes her way back to the double doors.

 

            “Oh, you darling,” Anna whispers upon finding a freshly cut pomegranate on her desk. How like a mouse Oksana is, silent except for when she chooses to scratch and bear gifts. It smells wonderful, and the arils and seeds are juicy and tart. She plucks the seeds while she sorts through paperwork and grading to take home, being careful not to stain the white paper with red juice.

            A knock sounds at the door, quick and abrupt.

            “Come in,” Anna says, thinking it must be Olga from the advanced class come to talk with her about the speaking test, but it’s Ms. Studebaker, the history teacher from England.

            “I’m sorry, I’d hoped you weren’t busy,” Ms. Studebaker says, looking embarrassed.

            “It’s no trouble. Can I help you?”

            “I was wondering if you might fetch me some chalk? I’m giving a little lesson and can’t exactly walk away.”

            “Sure,” Anna says. “I’ll bring it in a moment.” The door shuts, heels clack in retreat. Anna finishes the rest of the seeds and tosses the rest of the fruit in the bin. She sets her papers where they’ll be easiest to grab, and then leaves for the supply closet.

            The layout of the school is strange. Classrooms are on one floor while their supply closets are on another, and so Anna must climb a set of steps to reach the one that has chalk. The classrooms themselves don’t have storage rooms, which is also strange, but she supposes it allows for more space for desks and tables and the like. She flicks on the supply closet’s light once there, lost in thoughts, humming the opera from last week, and doesn’t notice the noise inside until she opens the door.

            Anna freezes, and she curses the way lights must always be a spotlight on things, for it reveals the girl from earlier and her disheveled state, her parted shirt, her dark pants pulled down past her spread knees and between them is Oksana, her eyes wide, the first few buttons of her shirt undone, her mouth wet and shining—

            “Oksana,” Anna says, turning her back quickly, her heart about to burst from her chest and fall to its death after crashing through the window. Someone is holding lighters against her face. Behind her, the rustling of clothes, still-calming breathing, a whispered, “I’m sorry; I’ll see you later.” The girl rushes off and Oksana emerges from the supply closet, calm, buttoning her shirt the rest of the way. Anna dares not look at her mouth. She says, “There are better places to conduct your… affairs.”

            “You think I planned to have you walk in just after I’ve given her an orgasm?”

            The lighters come closer. “Nobody really plans anything.” What are you saying? Get a grip, Anna…

            “Why won’t you look at me?” Oksana says.

            Anna inhales a slow breath. “You should go, Oksana. It’s Friday.”

            She sees Oksana tuck her hands in her pants pockets. She says, in French, “I’m glad it was you.”

            Anna lets the breath go only when Oksana is out of sight. She grabs the chalk from inside the supply closet and nearly slams the door shut. When she delivers it to Ms. Studebaker, her head is not on Earth at all, and her body is loosely controlled by someone else’s strings. She’s an astronaut floating somewhere in the atmosphere where all she can see is Oksana’s bright eyes, her shining mouth. She needs to land somewhere, doesn’t matter where, the ocean, atop Mount Everest. She gathers her papers and then somehow she’s in the front seat of her car but instead of home she pulls into the parking lot of a church she hasn’t been to in weeks. Its stained-glass windows are like multicolored beacons and the large wood doors at the front are arms stretching open. Anna calms herself, puts a mask on, forces her lungs to take slower breaths, and walks into those arms.

            Churches are always cold and yet she can’t feel it, not even when she kneels at a pew right underneath a vent towards the back. She stares at the intricate front, eyes on the smooth, carved marble of crucified Christ, whose half-lidded eyes are cast towards heaven. Obediently she crosses herself, bows her head, clasps her hands. Please, she begins, forgive the scene I witnessed, please forgive my wild mind for seeing her in its eye. I couldn’t look at her because I was afraid of what I’d feel if I did… She stumbled to me and I stepped to help, because You would want me to… She opens her eyes, casts them to the ceiling. “Tell me,” she whispers. “Tell me what I should do.” She waits. And waits. Nothing yet. Sometimes He answers right away, sometimes He likes to take His sweet goddamn time. That’s what this is, she tells herself. Give it time. She looks to the front again, sees the wound of the spear in Christ’s side, just barely open, like Oksana’s lips had been the moment her eyes had fallen on the open door—

            She shoves the images back and, beginning to gather her belongings, hopes that some answer will shout back at her once she leaves this embrace.

            For a long while she does nothing but sit in her car and breathe. Reflect on the teachings her parents had passed to her, ones that a pastor had repeated some time ago. _Just because God is silent doesn’t mean He’s not listening._ Her lungs calm themselves and her heart begins to slow its rush, and once she feels that her mind will cooperate, she drives back home. It’s almost five in the evening.

            Max is there, dressed down from work, already fixing a cake for later. His shirt is spotted with flour and his hands are sticky with sugar and milk when he takes Anna’s.

            “You all right?” he asks.

            Anna nods, presses their foreheads together, breathes him in, this man who smells like home and all its comforts. His thumbs stroke her cheeks, a habit long-standing, one that began when they first met. “Your hands are messy,” she murmurs, feeling his smile.

            “I wasn’t expecting you till later,” he says. “You’ve had quite a few late nights.”

            “Yes. I’m… sorry.” She closes the distance between them, pressing her lips gently to his. Max’s kisses are scratchy but his mouth is soft all the same; it tastes like cake batter. She cups his face, brings him closer, drags a hand down his chest until it reaches his belt.

            “Hey,” he says, “let me clean up. Sticky hands aren’t sexy.”

            She laughs. It sounds off, but he can’t tell. He can’t tell, either, that the more they kiss and stumble to the bedroom just feet away that Oksana is beginning to look up from the depths of Anna’s mind. She kisses him harder, shoves him onto the bed, kicks her shoes off and tears her skirt and stockings away from her melting legs. He throws his pants to the foot of the bed and she climbs over him, straddles him, kisses him more, projections playing behind her eyes. A parted shirt. Pale legs spread like wings and Oksana knelt between them as if in worship. She’s on her knees too, hands splayed on Max’s chest, tightening when he slips inside her.

            “God,” he breathes.

            “Let me,” she hears herself say. “Let me, darling…” It feels good, sends little sparks of color flying behind her eyes, but isn’t enough. Not nearly enough. Oksana is crawling up, demanding in that quiet way of hers and Anna caves, lets her project herself fully. She replays that moment, the light coming on, Oksana pulling away, her mouth parted and glistening, looking unashamed and whispering “I’m glad it was you” in her accented French. “I’m glad it was you.” Anna’s curling, eyes screwed shut, head filled with those words as she shouts, the orgasm a tsunami wave pulling her into its grasp, leaving her splayed atop Max when it washes her ashore.


	4. Raised Grey Faces

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating has been upped, again, because of this chapter.  
> Special thanks to Dani, my unofficial official beta, for her excitement, encouragement, and constant help with this chapter, from its events to the French. Merci, cherie! And as always, to my readers, for your love, comments, and patience. 
> 
> Content warning: Masturbation and sexual fantasies, maybe some feelings too.

“Just… get me some wine. The red French one.”

            He kisses her slick forehead and Anna has neither the heart nor spine to pull away. She can’t fathom how Max can get up and walk without his legs giving way. She runs her hands over her face, wanting so badly to break something for being such an idiot, but reacting that way would mean explaining to Max what’s going on, and there is no way in hell to do it. She accepts the wine glass, only half full, nods when he tells her he’s going to finish the cake. She won’t be able to look at Oksana now. The girl will ask questions and Anna doesn’t know if she can answer them truthfully, or will. She finishes her wine in one gulp, cringing at its dryness but reveling in its distinct flavor. She rinses off in the shower and wants to put her head through its tiled wall.

 

—

“Give me strength, give me fucking strength…”

            She may as well be talking to her cigarette. She inhales its smoke like albuterol. It’s eight in the morning and she’s never had a cigarette before noon but in this case, she’s made a grand exception. The minute she walks through those doors Oksana will be somewhere within her line of sight, gathering books, walking from one class to the next, lingering in the library while Anna helps her other students find books so they may spend the class studying from them. She has these minutes to herself, asking God to grant her the spine to at least get through today. “Give me the fucking strength to keep my gaze away from her,” she whispers. “I ask that much.”

            Anna hadn’t slept well the night before, and so she feels much like the students she passes in the hallway, still waking up, reaching inside their heads to screw their brains into place, smelling of cigarettes too. Class doesn’t start for another twenty minutes but Anna has to be at the library before then, and so she quickly gathers today’s lesson plans and marches there, keeping her eyes on her own feet rather than on the hallway. It comes as both relief and disappointment that Oksana is not among the students mingling here, yet some dark cloud begins forming over her head at the prospect that she’ll soon see her.

            Helping her advanced class find their books and giving them study advice keeps her thoughts at bay. The library’s mix of literature whisper their words to her until it comes time to retreat to her classroom for her other classes. Her eyes drift to Oksana’s desk, which another girl occupies, keep drifting there even as she writes sentences on the board or reads over material while the first batch of intermediate students work on their translation, as if she’s hoping the girl will magically turn into Oksana if she glances there a number of times. But that sort of magic doesn’t exist in this world; Oksana is elsewhere, a physical being in some classroom, not just an impression in Anna’s head. Two more classes follow the same way and then there she is, walking through Anna’s door. Suddenly the room is too warm and so Anna opens the window nearest her desk.

            “ _Bonjour_ ,” Oksana says.

            Anna only glances. “ _Bonjour,_ Oksana,” she says, and goes back to the chalkboard to clean it off. She shuts her eyes, sighs as softly as possible. The day already feels longer, and it’s not even lunch.

            The rest of the class files in, takes their seats, chatters amongst themselves until Anna shuts the door. She greets them all, and then dives right in to the lesson, reminding them that the test is in a few days and that today will be a sort of review day. “You may already have notes on these things,” she begins, “but you may want to write them down again, just to be sure.”

            She switches between chalkboard and projector, writing or showing examples, writing if a student has a question. Per usual, Oksana does not ask anything, simply takes her notes in her stupidly elegant hand, gives Anna her full attention even though Anna hasn’t looked at her at all. Maybe she’s just afraid that, if she so much as lets her gaze linger longer than a second, she will turn into a pillar of salt.

            Towards the end of class, she announces, "All right, remember to thoroughly memorize your prepositions. _Derrière_ and _devant_ are direct opposites of each other, so if you mix them up, the whole meaning of your sentence will change.” Her eyes finally land where they aren’t supposed to; the salt starts building when she sees Oksana lick her lips. And there is the light, that glistening mouth, a brief image of her wiping it clean— She turns away, face hot, continues, “A-Also, _au-dessous-de_ and um…” She clears her throat. “Yes, _au-dessous-de_ and _au-dessus-de_ only differ by one letter when you're writing them. Please be careful not to mix these up, else you will lose points."

            The bell rings and the class packs away their things, while Anna gathers papers and pens and cleans the chalkboard. She doesn’t realize she isn’t alone until she turns around and sees Oksana close to her desk, hair falling over the left side of her face, a fruit in her hand.

            “Do you need something?” Anna asks, voice harder than she means it to be.

            “Will you sit with me today?”

            Outside her open window, the courtyard fills with the voices of students on lunch break. A small group sits at their usual bench, sharing headphones. Anna’s palms are tingling and starting to grow clammy. She hopes her nervousness, or whatever this is, hasn’t made itself present underneath the arms of her shirt. She says, “I can’t.”

            Oksana nods, her lips pulled into a small pucker. “I will sit with Augustine then.” She sets the peach next to Anna’s computer, and then she’s gone. Anna picks it up, examines it; it’s ripe, the juice will be sweet when it runs down her chin. She contemplates throwing it out, letting it be in Oksana’s line of sight when she comes back at the end of the day, but in the end she bites into it, realizing that Augustine must be the girl Oksana had fucked in the supply closet, and the fruit tastes like copper.

 

            Anna can’t fathom the courtyard’s soft light or the brown-reds of the trees; it all feels too much, too bright. She shakes free a Marlboro and hurries to light it before Oksana—the reason she’d rushed here in the first place—has a chance. The nicotine calms some of her fraying nerves, makes her chest feel looser, and yet that coiling thing in her gut only gets tighter. What is happening to me? she wonders. What’s causing this?

            Oksana emerges from the double doors, hair flowing, walking easily, carefree. She strides over to Anna’s bench, says, “Oh, I didn’t have to help you this time,” as she sits down. Anna gets a whiff of her in the air: sweet but musky, undoubtedly a perfume of some sort. Again the knot tightens and she turns away from Oksana to blow the smoke out.

            “You haven’t spoken to me much today,” Oksana says. “Why?”

            Anna begins, “I’m…” but trails off, gathering her thoughts. Yes, she’ll tell one truth that she knows to be absolute. “I’m trying to figure out how best to word this.” Oksana waits, all patience. “Your French has improved, which is something you should be proud of, but based on the work you’ve turned in, I’ve come to the conclusion that you need extra lessons.” Oksana’s face darkens slightly, but otherwise stays calm. “I used to do them in class but you’re here all day anyway, and so I was thinking we’d do them elsewhere.” She takes one last drag on her cigarette before grinding it out.

            Oksana is silent for a long minute. Then, “I’ve never heard you say that much to me before.”

            Anna laughs. “I was nervous. But really, does that work for you?”

            “Of course. And we’ll do them at your home.”

            For a moment, Anna doesn’t know what to say, taken aback by such a bold suggestion, but then she nods, gets up from the bench. “Let’s go then, if there’s no better place. I’ll buy you a tea.”

            “No,” Oksana says, “don’t buy me anything. Just make it when we get there.”

            She follows Anna from the courtyard and away from the school to the staff parking lot, which is at the back. They approach the car and Anna wishes it were nicer, a newer model, or a different car altogether, but Oksana’s face bears no trace of judgement.

            “How did I know you’d drive a clunker?” she says.

            Anna scoffs, unlocks the car. “Dear Lord, get in.” Her heart sprouts wings at the small smile Oksana gives her. She plucks the pine air freshener from the mirror and shoves it between the driver’s seat and the CD compartment. Oksana opens the compartment when they’re on the road and away from the school.

            “ _Classique_ ,” Oksana remarks, with raised eyebrows. “Is this all you listen to?” Nimble fingers file through the CDs, taking in the different albums that Anna knows consist of piano, orchestral, brass and woodwind, symphony, and opera, all by composers she’d grown up listening to and ones she’d discovered on her own.

            Anna smiles, almost laughs.

            “What?” Oksana says.

            “I went through a Madonna phase.”

            “Are you messing?”

            She’s truly chuckling now. “No, I’m not. I had a picture on my wall that said _In Vogue We Trust_. I listened to her music whenever I could. Then I just got tired of it.”

            “Thank God you did.”

            “You don’t like classical, or opera, but national anthems. What else?”

            Oksana shrugs, returning the CDs to their original positions and closing the compartment, resting her arm on it. “Nothing else. Music holds no value to me. It’s not very stimulating.”

            “What stimulates you, then?”

            “Movies. Languages.”

            Violence, Anna thinks, remembering her broken nose, all that blood on her face, the bruises, how unaffected she’d been despite the immense pain it must’ve caused. She doesn’t voice the thought, afraid of upsetting her to the point Oksana will change her mind about the lessons.

            “What stimulates you, Anna?” Oksana asks. It’s the first time she’s spoken Anna’s name, and it makes her stomach curl pleasantly.

            “Music, art, books… It’s been a long time since I’ve last read a book.”

            “When was the last time?”

            “A few years ago, I think. _Les Misérables._ A big, fat brick.”

            “How long did it take you to finish it?”

            “Months,” Anna replies. “When your life is cluttered you hardly have time for other hobbies.”

            They pass many cafés and restaurants and coffeehouses, people mingling, talking, laughing, and perhaps it’s good that Oksana suggested Anna make the tea; circles can be surprisingly small in life, and if they were seen… She doesn’t want to think of the things that would happen.

            Fifteen minutes later they turn onto the quiet street where Anna’s apartment complex sits. The buildings here are older and the trees are bigger, leaves turning, already beginning to cover the sidewalks. They crunch under Anna’s pumps and Oksana’s beaten-up sneakers when they exit the Volkswagen. Anna walks briskly and it feels like her tongue is clogging her throat. Max isn’t here, she knows this; he’s still at work, will be until at least six. They have two hours.

            Anna leads Oksana up the stairs and to the door. She opens it, flicks the lights on even though the late afternoon light is already pouring through the open blinds. “Welcome,” she says. “You can leave your shoes at the door, if you’d like, or keep them on.” Anna leaves her own shoes at the door and slips her feet into slippers, almost sighing. Oksana is taking the apartment in, wandering about the sitting room, looking out the window, browsing the shelves. Anna hears her make a noise at the chair with the cactus cushion, something between a scoff and a chuckle, and she sits in it, legs spread, head back.

            “This chair is ridiculous,” Oksana says. “I’ve got my ass on a cactus.”

            Anna hides a laugh behind her hand. “Luckily it’s only a pillow and not the real thing. How do you like your tea?”

            “The English way. Milk and two sugars.”

            Anna goes about the kitchen, putting the kettle on, bringing down cups and their matching saucers, cutting two slices of cake from the one Max had made last week. She uses the moment of isolation to remind herself that this is school-related, even though all her previous lessons had been in her classroom. They’ll only be working, that’s all this is. And it’s polite to give guests tea and cake, isn’t it?

            She finds a fork for Oksana’s slice and brings it to her, saying, “I don’t know how you like cake—”

            “I love it,” Oksana says, accepting the small plate. “Thank you.”

            Anna pours tea when it’s ready and brings out their cups and her own slice of cake, then gathers the materials for this lesson, settling herself heavily in the comfy kitchen chair. “The test is in two days,” she says, “so you can also think of this as extra preparation, if you’d like. I will speak to you in French from this point on.”

            Oksana nods, takes a bite of cake. “What will we work on?” she asks, and they dive in. They begin with grammar and prepositional phrases, the two things most of the class has struggled most with, spending a good half-hour on that until Oksana seems to have it down. Then there’s pronunciation, which always gives new speakers hell; there are many silent letters in the French language, and many vowel sounds, and many sounds that sound close to each other but differ by the tone. Oksana messes up _langoureusement_ , which causes Anna to laugh, and then does it on purpose until Anna says, “You’ll kill me; I have to warm up the tea,” breathless, still smiling when she takes the cups to the kitchen. She warms it up, serves another slice of cake, and picks up where they left off. By the time they close the notebooks and make their final notes, it’s thirty minutes past five.

            “Oh dear,” Anna says, and begins to clean up the dishes. “Does it all make sense? Has this helped?”

            “ _Oui,_ ” Oksana replies. She has papers clutched to her chest. “You’re rushing, what’s going on?”

            She can’t lie, not about this. “My… husband,” Anna says softly. “He’ll be home in half an hour. Do you need me to drive you anywhere?”

            “No. Thank you. Oh,” Oksana says, reaching into her jacket pocket, “this is for you.” It’s another pomegranate, redder than the last, impossibly ripe-looking. She sets it on the table Anna had sat at and then makes her way to Anna’s door. “ _Bonsoir,_ Anna.”

            Anna’s sigh fills the empty room. She takes the dishes to the sink and washes them quickly, pausing at Oksana’s cup, staring at the stain of lipstick on the rim. She wipes it with her thumb, examines the color on her skin, thinking it almost like a kiss before she lets the cup slip into the soapy water and scrubs her thumb too harshly with the dish rag. Once the plates and cups and saucers are dried and put away, she focuses on the papers, organizing them into a stack, and then she picks up the pomegranate, uncertain of what to do with it. Such a ripe red thing deserves to be eaten thoroughly, and so she slices it open and partakes of the tart arils and seeds, staining her fingers and palms red. She’s plucking the last ones from the fruit’s heart when Max comes home, shuffling on tired feet, face heavy.

            “Hey darling,” Anna says, wiping her hands on the dishtowel dangling from the oven.

            “Are you wearing perfume?” Max asks. “It’s lovely.”

            Oh, god. She sighs, steps into the light of the sitting area. “No,” she admits. “Oksana was here.”

            Max’s face darkens slightly as he bends to untie his shoes. “What for?”

            “French lessons.”

            He says nothing, only sighs too. Then, “I have to go out of town, just for a day. Work thing.”

            “Oh.” Relief floods her. “Now?”

            “Mm-hmm. I’m sorry it’s such short notice.”

            Anna waves a hand at him. “It’s fine. Go pack.”

            It only takes him fifteen minutes. Anna is in the kitchen when he comes to say goodbye to her. He kisses her head with a short peck, makes his way to the door, but stops. “Do you like her, Anna?” The grip on the handle of his suitcase is tighter.

            She emerges from the kitchen, crosses her arms over her chest, heart crawling into her throat. “Of course I like her,” Anna says.

            “No, do you _like_ her?”

            Her stomach melts, sends more molten metal into her throat to join her heart. “What the hell are you implying? No! How dare you ask me such sinful things!”

            He nods, and for once in her life she can’t read his face. He shuts the door softly behind him and Anna leans against a kitchen chair for support, hand against her chest like she’s preventing her lungs from leaking through her ribs. He isn’t an idiot, of course he knows she likes Oksana well enough; Anna thinks she’s brilliant and gifted and funny and rude and who wouldn’t want someone that delightful in their class? She likes spending time with her during lunch and after school and even during lessons, a different sort of intimacy discovered in just two hours. But there are the touches, she thinks, collapsing heavily into the cactus chair, how they linger, how warm Oksana’s hand is on her arm or on her own hand when she lights Anna’s cigarette, and the _looks_ Oksana gives her, the look of someone admiring someone else, exploring their details with a single glance, taking them in and every fiber of their being whispering _beautiful_ ; and oh goddamn it it’s very well what Oksana is, more so when she’s in the sun, when she’s hanging on Anna’s every word, when she smiles, when Anna wants so badly to brush her shining dark hair out of her left eye and behind her ear, feel its softness, and though she didn’t realize it then she’d thought the same thing when she opened that supply closet door and saw her kneeling, saw her wide eyes and full, wet lips, her smile, shameless confidence,

            and her hand finds its way underneath her skirt, at the thought of Oksana’s teeth worrying at her lip, the way her hair falls over her face, and the lingering scent of her on the chair and Anna moans at the touch, how slick she finds herself and she thinks she could cry it feels so lovely and so wrong but it’s inevitable and impossible to keep her thoughts at bay now, they’re no longer in her control, and so she lets her head fall back against the chair and spreads her knees and begins in earnest, thinking of the spotlight and the closet but it isn’t the girl Oksana has against the shelf, it’s Anna, being kissed passionately while fingers stroke her and lips whisper sweet obscenities and Anna shudders at the thought of those lips going lower and lower until Oksana replaces her hand with her mouth and “Yes, darling… Oh, god…” Would Oksana fuck her until she feels raw, would it be lovemaking, so gentle and stretched out; she doesn’t know, just knows she wants to be the subject of Oksana’s worship, taken any way, until—until— “Please, Oksana darling…”

            She places her hand over her mouth, gasping loudly into it, wanting to shout but knowing the neighbors are still awake. The orgasm takes her breath away and for a long minute all she can do is gasp, ride it out, until she has to take her hand away and inhale a drawn-out shaking breath. She studies herself in the dark, her wet hand, her too-hot body. She breathes again and nearly cries, because yes, _yes_. She’s just done this, masturbated to a student, to Oksana, said her name, imagined her… Oh, she likes her. She _likes_ her.

             Anna wipes the remnants of her fantasies on her skirt and then reaches for a cigarette from the drawers behind her, smoking it with shaking hands, feeling suddenly cold despite the sweat still drying. She smokes one, and another, until she feels stable enough to shower. She doesn’t dive into routine right away, instead kneels on the floor, throat tight with shame. The scalding water washes over her, her own form of self-punishment, and she prays.

            “Please forgive me, for I’ve had unholy thoughts.”

            “Please forgive me, for I’ve had unholy thoughts.”

            “Please forgive me, for I’ve had unholy thoughts…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Edit: A Note on Anna's Car  
> Deciding what car Anna would drive was a bit of fun; it would have to be a cheaper car, probably an older model as well, and so I settled on a 2003 Volkswagen Golf in dark blue. It seemed like a very Anna car.


	5. Socialite

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Dani for the feedback and dealing with my brain. Updates may be slower still because I'm starting my last year of school soon, but this'll get finished somehow.

The woman looking back at her is the same one that’s always been in the mirror, but there are bags under her eyes, and her cheeks are aflame despite the cold water Anna had splashed on them just seconds earlier. Her insides are rotting. Her body feels too hot. She’d seen Oksana in the library for one of her classes, their eyes had met, and Anna couldn’t stay, so filled with shame that she thought she would be sick, her own fantasies and memories flooding her all the way to the staff bathroom. She turns the tap on, splashes her face again, watches the water disappear down the drain. Something has to be done, she thinks, but what? Asking Oksana to leave her class would be the opposite of a good thing; she enjoys the French lessons, takes pride in her work, her notes, even her attention to Anna. Anna can tell herself not to look as many times as she pleases but still her eyes will betray her.

            “Deal with it,” she tells herself. “Somehow.”

            Her morning classes are filled with tests that drag on forever. Even if it allows her to catch up on grading, she still feels every minute tick by, every excruciating turn of the Earth. What makes it turn slower is the finding of a letter on her desk, hidden under a stack of graded papers. Oksana must’ve come by before the library. The letter is short, just like the last one had been.

        _Anna,_

_Thank you for the lesson, and for your unwavering attention. You’re the only person from whom it’s received._

_Oksana_

 

            “All right, please clear your desks. The written portion is today, and the speaking portion will be sometime next week. This is a no-notes test.”

            Pencils and pens scribble away, brows furrow in concentration and frustration, feet move to imaginary beats. It’s another kind of white noise that fades to the background as Anna, once again, reads over Oksana’s letter. The words are sweet but make her question why anyone wouldn’t give her unwavering attention. Perhaps they don’t see just how fascinating she is, how brilliant, how funny. They only see what they heard from Mrs. Ivanov that first week Oksana was here and nothing else.

            She’ll have to thank Oksana for her words. Writing back doesn’t seem like it would do anything justice—since Anna is clumsy with her writing words—nor does saying a simple thank-you. The letters are little glimpses of grandness, the gifts of fruit a gesture of kindness, ones that Oksana had paid for herself. It seems, then, only fair that Anna should spend money on Oksana as well, but what to get her? The first thing that pops into her mind are clothes, but she very quickly dismisses that thought. Too simple. The second thing is flowers, but those may send the wrong message.

            A girl named Marina sets her test on Anna’s desk, and returns to her own and cracks open a book. The cover is black, the title in white text: _Rachmaninoff, A Russian Great_. Famous for his _All-Night Vigil_. An idea begins to form. It’s not Oksana’s type of music, but she has to go to an opera at some point in her life. Even if it’s once and never again.

            To kill time, Anna looks up performances and titles and prices. _Samson and Delilah_ catches her eye, being performed in Moscow on Saturday next week. It’s a favorite, and worth a shot. She closes the tabs and spends the rest of class organizing work to take home.

 

—

“Come sit outside with me before you rush off,” Anna says after school the next day. “I want to talk to you.”

            “Did I fail my test?”

            “Oh, it’s not about school things.”

            The day is cloudy now, the lighting soft and diffused and spread throughout the courtyard. Students are leaving and soon the courtyard is almost empty. No one to witness Oksana lighting Anna’s cigarette and the hand on Anna’s. She takes one drag before speaking. “How would you feel about coming to an opera with me?”

            Oksana tucks her lighter away, looking slightly stunned to be asked such a question. “I’d be delighted,” she says at last. “When?”

            “Saturday next week.”

            Oksana nods, pulls out her phone. “I’ll need your number so we can meet somewhere. Or so you can let me know if plans change.”

            Anna inputs her mobile number.

 

            “I have to go out of town next week,” Max says. They’re at dinner, at one of Max’s favorite restaurants, having gone out for the first time in weeks. He looks tired, dragged down.

            “Where?” Anna asks.

            “St. Petersburg. I’ll be gone for three days.” He sighs, pushes meat around his plate. “I hate these things.”

            “You always did say in-person meetings were better than Skype calls.” Anna stirs more sugar into her coffee. “I’ve been invited to an opera that Saturday you’re gone.”

            “By whom?”

            “Katrina Petrov,” Anna lies. She studies Max’s face. There isn’t a trace of doubt or ice. “She knows I like _Samson and Delilah_. Is that okay?”

            “You can do what you like, Anna.” He reaches across the table, squeezes her hand. “I know it’s strange when I’m gone.”

 

—

Anna’s hands are shaking when she makes the final adjustments to her hair. She’s nervous to be going to an opera with someone new, with someone she has feelings for; she hopes she’ll be able to keep a mask of professionalism, that no one will ask anything. She studies her reflection in the mirror, tugs at her jacket, and decides she looks good enough.

            There is a knock at the door just as she exits the bathroom. Her heart sails into her throat. She takes a few steadying breaths before opening the door.

            Oksana is there, wearing a slim-fitting red dress, the straps on her shoulders thin, the cut of the neckline plunging, revealing her collarbones, the slight swell of breasts. A simple but elegant dress. “You look… so grown,” Anna says, inviting her in.

            “Aren’t I?” Oksana returns.

            And of course she is. Would a child write such well-worded letters? Would a child be so kind, so attentive to someone else’s needs? Lord, she looks like a renaissance painting, hair pinned in a bun, shining, contrasting sharply with her red dress. Eyes will be on her for sure, Anna thinks, stomach hot. She turns away at last and goes to her bedroom to put her heels on.

            In the car, the sky begins to sprinkle tears on them. Oksana is strangely silent, no questions to ask. She seems deep in thought, elbow propped on the armrest of the passenger door, face turned out the window, the lights dancing pleasantly on her face. When not on the road, Anna’s eyes are on the skin just above the plunging red neckline, the soft swell of flesh visible where the fabric begins. So soft-looking, she thinks, letting out a slow breath. So beautiful.

            The rain is a drizzle by the time they’re walking to the concert hall. They share one navy umbrella, and Oksana’s hand is tucked into the crook of Anna’s elbow, a warm, sturdy weight. This close, Anna can smell her perfume, something strong and musky, a darker kind of fragrance. Not something that Anna would be attracted to in the department store, but on Oksana, it’s a different song. Her own perfume is floral, something light.

            “We’re here,” Oksana says when they’re inside, “so tell me what we’re seeing.”

            “ _Samson and Delilah_ ,” Anna replies, shaking the water droplets off her umbrella.

            Oksana shakes her head, a small smile on her face. “I’m not remotely surprised.”

            “Give it a chance,” Anna says. “At least stay until the end of the second act.”

            “Why, is that your favorite part?”

            “Sit with me and find out.”

            Across the way, at the entrance to the auditorium, an older man looks Oksana up and down. How free he is to do such a thing, without reprimand, whereas if Anna were to visibly do the same thing, someone would surely notice. The man turns and she glares at his back.

            Inside the auditorium is warm, the lights a pleasing goldish color. They find their seats at the front row of the balcony. Oksana puts her sweater over her legs and asks, “What did you tell your husband?”

            “I was invited by a friend,” Anna says shortly. “He doesn’t know it’s you.”

            “Why would it bother him that you’re with me?”

            Any mention of Oksana brings ice between them, and Anna must tap at it with a chisel to come back to him. “It doesn’t matter. He’s out of town.”

            “Why bring me here?” Oksana questions. “It seems a strange way to thank somebody for a stupid letter.”

            “I wanted to give you something proper,” Anna says. “Words wouldn’t do my gratitude justice.”

            “So you bring me with you to listen to cat-screech.” There’s amusement crinkling her eyes. “What a proper thank you this is.”

            Anna sighs, shakes her head, feels her mouth forming a smile. Underneath the stage, the orchestra begins to file in, switching on their stand lights, tuning their instruments. The seats in the auditorium fill too, and soon it’s packed, alive with conversations and laughter. _Samson and Delilah_ is a popular opera, and a beautiful one. Anna had seen it for the first time as a teenager, with her mother and father, and had been overcome by the beauty of the lyrics—back then, she’d only understood half of what they were saying, her French still blossoming—and the scenery and the costumes. She hopes that Oksana will like the lyrics. They’re relatable.

            “The French are very different about their opera,” Anna says. “They’re passionate, of course, but they were never afraid of love scenes. It’s daring.” More swells of tuning come from underneath the stage, percussion joining in. “It’s something that makes an impression.”

            Oksana nods. “I’ll have a permanent impression in my ears.”

            Anna chuckles. “I should’ve just gone by myself.”

            “It’d be boring without me here.”

            “You do give good company,” Anna agrees, voice softer. At that moment, the auditorium goes dark, and a finely-dressed announcer comes on stage, illuminated by a spotlight. He makes the usual announcement and departs. The curtains part, and it begins.

            Light can only travel so far, and in the balcony, it’s darker. Oksana is almost a silhouette, but the front of her face is slightly illuminated by the light. She’s watching the stage with disinterest; her features are almost a frown, so very different than in class, when everything is hard with focus. It was like she said in the car when Anna first brought her over for lessons, the swelling, beautiful voices and orchestra hold no sway for her.

            Anna leans to her when a significant portion of the first act has gone by and whispers, “You really do hate this stuff.”

            “Did you think I was joking?” Oksana says back, her head turning to Anna so quickly that Anna’s lips grace her cheek. It’s soft, and warm; it makes Anna blush.

            The lights get brighter and Anna’s eyes can’t help but drift down. Oksana won’t know, from this angle; Anna’s face is half-hidden. She’s staring, watching the rise and fall of Oksana’s chest, marveling how smooth her skin looks, how bright. She turns her focus back to the stage, tries to listen to the music, but it goes in one ear and drifts back out the other, her brain hardly latching on to the words, suddenly incomprehensible. Projections play in her head. She’s elsewhere, back at her apartment, running her fingertips over Oksana’s collarbones, dragging them lower until she’s feeling just above the neckline. She shakes her head to bring herself back. The first act concludes; the stage goes dark for a scene change and then the lights come back up. Her stomach expands with her heart, for this is the part she’d wanted to see. Samson and Delilah are in Delilah’s tent, and Delilah is telling Samson she is all his, if he would have her, that he should turn away all ambition and have his attention solely for her, caressing him meaningfully, suggestively. He has no idea it’s a trap. He confesses his true feelings and, singing their duet, they make love. It’s passionate, filled with a sort of melancholic longing that makes Anna’s chest expand outward, for how relevant this is. She could caress Oksana all she wants, make love to her, and still she would not deserve her, would not ever be able to be with her. Pain expands in her insides just as a warm hand settles on her knee. Oksana’s hand is just below the hem of her skirt, almost hot, even through Anna’s tights. She takes the hand and squeezes it before setting it quickly back in Oksana’s lap. The balcony is darker not seconds later; she can’t see the look on Oksana’s face.

            The deed done, Delilah, having found the secret to Samson’s strength, calls in the hidden Philistine soldiers and they take Samson away in shackles. The curtain falls, signaling intermission. The audience applauds, the lights come on, and Anna can’t look. She says a quick, “I’ll be back, Oksana,” and rushes to the restroom. She only splashes her face with cold water, lets it stay there for a minute or two before patting her skin dry with a paper towel. Her leg tingles where Oksana had touched her. It feels like a lingering kiss.

            When she sits back down, her mind is a little calmer. “Do you want to leave?” she asks.

            “You want to stay,” Oksana says, leaning back in her chair, “so I will stay.”

            “Are you sure your ears won’t start bleeding?”

            “They already have. I just wipe the blood when you aren’t looking.”

            The third and final act focuses entirely on Samson, whose hair has been shorn and who is blind, praying for his people. The love scene had stayed with Anna for many years, and this part too. It nearly makes her cry, but tonight the tears stay, the scene isn’t as compelling. Something more so is sitting to her right, leaning to her, whispering, “Your jacket’s crooked.” Oksana reaches over to fix it and her palm grazes Anna’s right breast. She inhales sharply, stomach curling because her nipple stiffens, because the touch—surely accidental—feels good. Oksana pulls away, returning her hand to her lap, where it stays.

            The scene changes to the temple of Dagon, where priests and priestesses share an interlude, and then Samson is led in, taunted by Delilah. He prays to God to restore his strength when asked to kneel before Dagon, and then he pushes the pillars down upon himself and the temple, leaving everything to ruin.

 

            “Do you have a tissue?”

            They’re back in the car now, panting, clothes wet from the heavy rain, the heat on and warming up. Anna digs a tissue from her jacket pocket. Oksana turns her head to the side, so that her left ear is facing Anna, and says, “Is there blood coming from it?”

            “I see a little,” Anna says, leaning over to wipe an imaginary trail of blood from the corner of Oksana’s jaw, smiling widely. She balls the tissue up and tosses it into the car’s trash bin. “Like it never happened.” She puts her cold hands in front of the vent. “Should I drive you anywhere?”

            “No. I’ll get a bus.”

            The question escapes before Anna can stop it. “Where do you live, Oksana?”

            Oksana’s face hardens slightly. She puts her sweater back on, hiding her shoulders, leans to adjust her heels. She opens the car door and cold raindrops speck the seat. “I will see you Monday,” she says, in French, and climbs from the passenger seat, shutting the door behind her. She walks south, red dress a beacon in the dark. The car feels colder, even when the heat finally kicks in.

 

—

Anna switches off her desk lamp, belongings gathered, ready to head home early for once. Her cigarettes rattle in her jacket pocket. She wonders, briefly, what Max is up to in St. Petersburg, where he is, how he is, whether she should call him later in the evening or if he would be too busy for a talk. Her apartment feels empty without him, a strange sort of quiet that won’t be filled until he comes back home, or until the next time Oksana comes over for her lessons.

            She goes to shut her window just as a commotion from the schoolyard floats through it. It’s Oksana again, arguing with someone Anna can’t see because of the small crowd gathered. Afraid for another moment of violence, Anna flees her cooling classroom, locks the door without checking it, and half-jogs down the hallway, the stairs, and to the courtyard. By the time she gets there, Oksana has gone, and the crowd of students dissipates, muttering amongst themselves. There’s no telling what the argument was about, and she doesn’t feel like asking. She goes to her car and smokes with the door wide open; the bench would feel too strange without Oksana sitting beside her.

            Once home, she throws the windows open, letting in the cool air. It smells like autumn, and from somewhere down the street she catches a whiff of spices. She makes herself tea, helps herself to a slice of bread Max had left for her in the fridge before taking off on his business trip, and settles in the cactus chair. _Samson and Delilah_ floats through her head and for long minutes she lives in the memories of the opera, of Oksana’s comments, her dress, the moment Anna’s lips had touched her cheek. An accidental kiss, or a purposeful turn of the head. And Oksana’s palm brushing her breast, had that been intentional too? No, she tells herself, remembering the way Oksana had fixed her jacket, it couldn’t’ve been. Would she do something like that, at an opera?

            Someone knocks on her door. Two short, sharp raps.

            “Oksana,” Anna says when the door opens. “What’s happened to your face?” Her lip is split and already beginning to scab over, and there’s a rather nasty cut above her brow that’s left a smear of bright red leading to her hairline. Anna turns, goes straight to the bathroom, searching for peroxide and cotton swabs and bandages, aware that Oksana is following her in. “Schoolyard fights again?”

            “It stings,” Oksana says.

            “Here, come here, my darling. Let’s get that blood off your face.” Oksana sits on her vanity stool, nowhere near the vanity, and Anna is suddenly aware of the endearment that had crossed her lips. She wets a cotton swab with water and begins to wipe the blood from Oksana’s face, aware of how close the air is, how close she must be to do this. She keeps her face neutral, keeps her eyes on the top of Oksana’s head and her brow for as long as possible. The blood gone, she tosses the pink swab away and wets another with peroxide. She dabs the cut on Oksana’s lip, feeling a sting of sympathy when she inhales sharply. It’s safe to stare, take in these full lips, parted slightly to give Anna access. She takes her hand away to get a bandage, wishing there hadn’t been the barrier of cotton between Oksana’s lips and her fingers.

            “There,” Anna says, gently placing the bandage over the cut on Oksana’s brow. “They’ll heal a little faster.” She looks down and her face falls, because Oksana is staring at her mouth, and then suddenly she’s leaning up and their lips meet. Anna gasps, freezes, and then kisses back, sets a hand on Oksana’s shoulder, feeling warmth flood her. Oksana’s mouth is softer than she’d imagined, tasting like blood, so full, so goddamn tempting. Anna feels a tongue slip between her teeth and it throws her back to Earth and she tears herself violently away, stepping backwards until her lower back hits the vanity on the other side of the bathroom. They’re both breathing heavily and there’s a little color to Oksana’s cheeks.

            “You don’t like French kissing?” Oksana asks, teasing, but then her voice is serious. “Have I read you wrong?”

            The lighters against her cheeks are more intense than ever. Anna can’t say anything, doesn’t know what to say. For a while she stands there, hands dangling uselessly at her sides, Oksana staring almost expectantly, or concernedly. Her brain gears are turning and stalling, trying to make sense of what has just happened. Replaying it. Soft brush of lips, warm tongue sliding pleasantly into Anna’s mouth. A familiar heat has settled between her legs and it makes this spiral further. Anna says, “Maybe.” An answer of conflict. She can’t read Oksana’s face.

            “Hmm,” Oksana hums. She turns around in the stool, examines her cut lip, the bandage Anna taped over her brow. At last she gets up, turns back to face Anna. “You kiss wonderfully.”

            Anna shuts her eyes, squeezes the vanity’s edge. “Don’t… _say_ things like that.”

            She hears silence and shuffling, then a soft, “Goodnight, Anna.” She doesn’t open her eyes until well after the front door shuts, and lets herself sink, trembling, to the floor.


	6. Almost

_Anna,_

_Thank you, firstly, for the opera. You are right, I do hate that sort of thing, but I didn’t hate your company._

_Forgive me about Friday. You’re a very beautiful woman. I couldn’t help myself. I do hope you won’t hold it against me; your kindness makes my life colorful._

_Oksana_

            “Oh give me strength to see her,” Anna whispers. Her first class of the afternoon files in, chatting amongst themselves about books and movies and the speaking portion of the test, which is today. Another French teacher, Mr. Oleg Unbegaun, comes in after them; he will be watching the class while Anna is with individual students in the library. He greets her in a friendly way, shaking her hand; his is warm and dry.

            “Thank you so much for taking the time to do this,” Anna says. “It’s lucky you don’t have an afternoon class.”

            “It’s no problem. I like this side of the building better,” Oleg says, and Anna smiles.

            She introduces him to the class once it’s begun and tells them they’ll be watching a French film while the speaking portion of the test is conducted. She’ll go in alphabetical order down the attendance list.

            “Larisa,” Anna says, “if you’d come with me, please.”

            The speaking portion is simply irregular verbs and prepositions in translation and in context of sentences. They will be graded on ordering them correctly and pronunciation. When Anna and Larisa Abdulov take their seats at the back of the first floor, where the library is quietest, the girl looks a little nervous.

            “Somehow I feel like I’m in trouble,” Larisa says, her voice soft, timid.

            “It’s nothing like that,” Anna assures her. “Speaking always made me nervous too.”

            Larisa smiles, probably grateful that someone else, an adult no less, also got nervous when one-on-one with an authority figure.

            Anna brings the materials forward, a student copy of the speaking portion and her copy with the correct answers, and a notepad and pen and tells her, “You can start whenever you’re ready.” The class is an hour and ten minutes long and it’s possible Anna may not get to everyone today; some students take longer than others, especially if, like Larisa, they’re nervous to be one-on-one with a teacher. But Larisa does well, despite a few mistakes and mispronunciations—which she had cringed at after realizing she’d messed it up—and Anna takes careful notes. Then, “All right, you’re done. Fetch Oksana for me, please, when you get back to class.” Larisa nods. “You did well.”

            “Thank you, Mrs. Leonova,” she says, and makes her way from the library.

            Anna draws a line on her notepad, writes _Oksana_ underneath it. Her hand has started to shake despite her best efforts, and her traitorous mind projects the kiss until her lips tingle. She wishes she’d brought tea with her.

            When she arrives, Oksana sits easily, confidently, so different than Larisa. _“Bonjour_ ,” she says.

            _“Bonjour,_ ” Anna returns, glancing at Oksana’s face. “How are your battle wounds?”

            “They don’t sting as much.”

            “You must be a quick healer.” Anna clears her throat, gets back to business. “You’ll be tested on ordering the prepositions and irregular verbs correctly and on pronunciation. You can start whenever you’re ready; the paper’s in front of you there.”

            Oksana speaks fluidly, almost gracefully, messing up only once. She leans back in the chair when she’s done, crosses her arms over her chest. Anna flushes with heat, being under Oksana’s studying gaze. She takes her notes, draws another line. “That’s all,” she says.

            “I’m sorry for kissing you,” Oksana says softly. Still it makes Anna freeze, how openly she’d said it. “I thought I’d read you right.”

            Anna blushes. She pretends to study her notes. “It’s fine,” she says. And it is. Just a silly mistake. Happy accident. Perfectly forgivable. She can’t think of what to say, doesn’t want to say anything else on the matter; who knows who might hear? “You’re done, Oksana,” Anna says gently. “Go get Boris for me, please.”

            The rest of class passes in much the same way, and by the time it’s over, only three students remain. Anna circles them on the attendance sheet, notes _Continue speaking portion tomorrow_ , and gathers her things. She’s making her way back to class when she’s stopped in the hall by Ms. Ivanov.

            “I’d like to have a word with you, Mrs. Leonova,” Ms. Ivanov says, and Anna walks with her back to her office. It’s a cozy space, filled with Ms. Ivanov’s books and papers and many documents in their frames, showing a history of her achievements. “It’s about Oksana,” she says, when the door is closed.

            Anna’s jaw tightens. “Tell me.”

            “She’s been in two scuffles now, the first probably the worst because of the broken nose. The second one happened only yesterday, but a month after the first. I’m… worried this may become a monthly occurrence.”

            “Are you suggesting Oksana is the one who initiates them?” Anna questions.

            “It seems to be that way—”

            “ _Seems_. The first instance was someone teasing her, and I’m not sure what the second one was about but she is the victim here. Shouldn’t you take some sort of action?” When Ms. Ivanov says nothing, Anna continues, “Oksana isn’t to blame. You ought to shift it elsewhere.”

           

            It’s after hours by the time Anna emerges from the school, just past six in the evening, and the rain is cold and heavy. She buttons her jacket, starts to make her way from underneath the covered double doors when she hears an umbrella snap somewhere to her right, making her jump. Oksana emerges, appearing as if from thin air, her hair damp and frizzing, the bottoms of her jeans wet.

            “You scared me,” Anna says, placing a hand against her chest. “Were you… were you waiting for me?”

            “Somewhat,” Oksana says. “Let me walk you to your car.”

            So Anna joins her underneath her dark blue umbrella, rain pounding it, hundreds of hands beating against a nylon drum. They’re in a little bubble all their own, warmth seeping between them.

            “Ms. Ivanov had a few words to say about you,” Anna says.

            “Good things?”

            “She’s wondering if your scuffles will become a monthly occurrence.”

            “Sort-of good things,” Oksana concludes.

            Anna scoffs. “I told her they weren’t your fault.”

            “The old bat probably didn’t believe you.”

            “I left before I could find out.”

             The faculty lot is empty when they arrive, just Anna’s little blue car and two others. Oksana holds the umbrella over her as she unlocks the driver’s door, keeps holding it even when the door is open.

            “You should be home, Oksana,” Anna says at last. “Do something with your Friday.”

            “I am. My ride is late.”

            “Where is it you’re going?”

            “Out. Somewhere in Moscow. Haven’t decided yet.” There’s a thoughtful look on her face, and against the blue of her umbrella, her eyes look delightfully light brown. “I meant what I said earlier, you know.”

            Anna nods, eyes on Oksana’s lips. “I know.” She licks her own, swallows, her mouth suddenly dry.

            “You shouldn’t look at me like that,” Oksana says softly, “if you don’t want me to do something about it.”

            “About what?”

            And Oksana leans in and their lips nearly brush but Anna turns her face away and Oksana’s lips brush her cheek instead, a warm, gentle kiss that lingers a second longer than is acceptable. “Don’t,” Anna whispers.

            “What did I just say?”

            Anna’s heart is leaking acid into her throat. She gets into her car, starts the engine. “I’m late for dinner,” she says, reaching for the door just as Oksana steps back. “Enjoy Moscow.” She doesn’t stay long enough to find out who it is Oksana is riding with. She only looks in the rearview mirror and sees Oksana standing in the rain, watching her drive away.

 

            Somewhere in that rainy world is Oksana, having an adventure in Moscow on a Friday night while Anna, sleepless, smokes her third cigarette of the night on the loveseat in her sitting room. It’s two in the morning. Max, who’d gotten home from his business trip before Anna had come back from school, is dead asleep. The bedroom door is cracked and his soft snores reach her ears, almost unnoticeable in the rain pounding against the windows. Just hours ago Anna had stared at his half-asleep form, trailed her fingers along his bare chest, her heart both constricted and expanding. For in his place she’d imagined Oksana, wondered how she slept, wondered if she would wake up if Anna were to trace patterns on her skin. She wonders, now, who will get that privilege tonight. A friend of the person who’d driven her to Moscow? A girl she met while wandering along the river? A boy from a club? Or would she even sleep at all, rest a little after the sex but leave before they could ask her to stay?

            Anna leans her head on the back of the couch, stares out the window whose view is silvered by rainwater. It serves as a projection screen, on which she sees the golden light reflecting off the Moskva River, Oksana walking arm-in arm with silhouettes, so alive, and reveling it.


	7. Transgression

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Dani for keeping me on top of things, and for Oksana's stupid beauty line
> 
> \--  
> As you may have noticed, I've taken the 'underage' warning off this work; after careful discussion and reviewing of things in various episodes, a conclusion was reached that Oksana would've been 19 when she murdered Max, and so it could also be concluded that she was of age when things happened between her and Anna.

The hallway is crowded with students making their way to classes; a backpack or purse or shoulder brushes Anna’s arm when someone walks by, and so she moves close to the wall, Petr following suit. He’d come to her to talk about the written portion first, and then had inquired about why she wanted to learn French.

            “I’ve always loved Paris,” Anna admits to him. “My parents had this photo album of their travels when they were young, and Paris took a whole chunk of it. I’d just… stare at those pictures for hours and dream of myself there and I thought, Why not get a step closer and learn French?”

            “You’ll go there someday, I’m sure,” Petr says. “We all will. And your lessons will have paid off.”

            She smiles, looks down. “Thank you, Petr. That’s kind of you.” When she looks back up she spots Oksana across the hall, paging through a thick book for another class. “You should get to class. I’ll see you in a few hours.” Petr tells her a soft goodbye and, with a confident stride, heads in the opposite direction. Anna calls, “Oksana,” and waves. Oksana stares at her for a second, and mouths, “Hello.”

            Anna crosses the hallway once she’s sure no one else wants to speak to her. “Don’t feel too bad about the written part,” she says. “What you got wrong tells you where you need to practice.”

            “I know,” Oksana says. Her mouth is turned down in a frown.

            “Look, why don’t you come by after school? We’ll talk then.”

            Oksana nods and, after a moment, propels herself from the wall and walks down the hall to Anna’s right, where her first class must be.

 

            Oksana comes into Anna’s classroom half an hour after school ends. She has books clutched to her chest—homework for other classes, Anna guesses—and looks nervous. Anna says, “It’s okay. You’re not in trouble. I was thinking another lesson would be good. We could start now, if you’d like.”

            Oksana shakes her head no. “I think I’d feel better at your home.”

            God, she looks rough, Anna thinks. “Okay,” she says. “I’ll clean up here and then we can go.”

            Oksana’s silence in the car is rather concerning. Anna hasn’t seen her worked up before, and so she doesn’t know if something she says will cause some sort of outburst. So she stays silent, longing to say something, worried it would be the wrong thing. Several times she glances at Oksana, who is staring out the window, fiddling with the door handle. _A-tap. A-tap._ Regular beats. It goes on until Anna pulls to the curb outside her apartment complex. Oksana follows her wordlessly in, settles in the kitchen chair while Anna changes into her slippers.

            “Could I have tea?” Oksana asks.

            “Of course. English style?”

            “Please.”

            There is no cake, and so they stick with tea while going over Oksana’s test and the things she missed, practicing them over and over until Oksana speaks them fluidly and with an air of impatience. By the time they finish it’s nearly six in the evening.

            “I hope this has been helpful,” Anna says. They’re standing by the door now, stuck in a limbo of conversation that neither of them really wants to end.

            “I’m sure I’ll get it right, but your tests are challenging,” Oksana says.

            “Challenges make you learn better.”

            Silence hangs for several heartbeats, Oksana looking rather put-out and Anna, on impulse, reaches for Oksana, murmurs, “Come here,” and wraps her in her arms. She’s warm and soft and Anna can smell her perfume, her hair and the shampoo she’d recently used, something floral. Oksana’s hands are between her shoulder blades, thumbs rubbing circles, chin on Anna’s shoulder. She fits, Anna thinks, so perfectly, a sudden, demanding heat curling in her gut.

            Anna pulls back first and Oksana’s hands linger at her elbows. Their faces are separated by inches of air. Anna steels herself, preparing herself for whatever action Oksana will perform, but Oksana doesn’t kiss her mouth. She kisses Anna’s cheek. Says, “ _Bonsoir,_ Anna.” 

            The door closing echoes in her ears and for a moment Anna can do nothing but listen to Oksana’s retreating footsteps until they’re gone, nothing but stand in the doorway and inhale the lingering perfume Max had smelled weeks ago. It brings back the moment she’d realized her feelings, the opera, and she collapses on her bed, indulges herself in those moments until she can’t resist, shame and lust tying her stomach into a knot. She unbuttons her shirt halfway, clumsily slides her skirt off, kicks it unceremoniously to the side, but before she begins she shakes a cigarette free and makes sure the matches are nearby. Then, she cups her breast, lets her palm rub slightly until her nipple hardens, like it had done at the opera. A version of Oksana is beside her, supported by an elbow, and the hand that slips between Anna’s thighs is hers, stroking, palm firm. “I can’t help myself,” Oksana says.

            “Help yourself,” Anna breathes. “I’m right here.”

 

—

A favorite thing for Anna and Max to do, when they first met, was to travel to Moscow and pretend to be tourists in their own country. They would walk arm in arm, join a few tour groups here and there, take in the sights with them even though they saw them all the time and were no new marvels. Their joy would garner them looks but, being young, they were in a world of their own and there were no cares to give. Of course, things like that occurred less and less as they grew older, save for the rare occasion when they both had the time.

            Today they’ve set aside their work in favor of driving into Moscow. The day is clear and bright, the sky open and blue with white puffs of cloud standing out against it, and the weather is cooler but the sun still holds warmth. There are both natives and tourists strolling along the Moskva, the latter fiddling with their digital cameras and snapping several photos.

            “It’s funny,” Max says, “how having tourists in your home makes you see things in another light.” He’s gazing across the river, at the architecture, the skyscrapers, how the styles are varied. “They see the things we’ve taken for granted.”

            “I do like this river,” Anna says. “Especially in the evenings.” The day hasn’t passed into evening yet, and so the light isn’t blue enough, and the shadows are too harsh. And even though Anna has always dreamed of living elsewhere, in Paris, she can’t deny there is some beauty about Moscow, and even Perm. She has fond memories of this river, some tinged in nostalgia; it was where she and Max had spent many evenings getting to know one another, and where Max had asked for her hand. And there’s the Red Square where they’d flocked from tourist group to tourist group, listening to information they’d learned in school long ago, snapping their own shit photos, danced in the evenings—something that continued in one of their apartments, in the kitchen or the bedroom.

            “Sometimes I wish I could paint this,” Anna continues. She detaches herself from Max’s soft grip and stands in a spot along the river. “Stand right here with my canvas and paint until I get it right.”

            “Would you sell it?” Max asks.

            “Yes. Probably to Americans. They love cities they’ve never been to.”

            Max laughs, reaches for her hand again. “You must have a bit of American in you, then. All this talk of Paris and you’ve never been.”

            “God I was always so jealous of my parents. They’d take me to operas and concerts and never out of the country. I’d ask them ‘Why haven’t you taken me to Europe? To Paris?’ and they’d always say, ‘You have all you need right here.’ How terrible is that?”

            “They were afraid of their daughter becoming too well-rounded,” Max says.

            She bumps his shoulder. “I don’t know what they were afraid of. Maybe they just didn’t want me to leave. Like moving there would be abandoning them.” A group of tourists passes them, chatting in German, looking over maps.

            “Why the long face, darling?” He wraps a heavy arm around her shoulders, pulls her close. His leather jacket smells like its material and his office.

            “Do you ever feel like your time is running out?” Anna asks. “It gets shorter and shorter and your windows of opportunities shrink and eventually you’re just… stuck.”

            “Sometimes,” Max replies. “But then I remember that time was invented by humans, and that I can manipulate it however I like and therefore,” he kisses the top of her head, “any opportunity I want to grab, I know I can grab it whenever I want. Well,” he adds, “almost whenever.”

            Anna hums, feels herself smiling. “Is that what happened the night you asked me to marry you? Taking an opportunity?”

            “I thought to myself, ‘Max, if you don’t do this now, you’ll regret it, and she might slip away.’”

            “Oh, bullshit,” Anna laughs. She puts her arm around him too. “I wouldn’t slip away from you.”

            Would she? Or has it already begun? Her thoughts certainly have, for suddenly she’s no longer walking along the Moskva with Max but with Oksana, arm in arm, or they’re sitting on the concrete ledge watching the lights while Anna smokes and Oksana studies her, worrying at her lip, wanting to lean in and give Anna a kiss. Oksana would like something like this, a different sort of trip than to an opera; no cat-screech to make her ears bleed, no boredom or shifting around in velvet chairs. Her chest aches as much as her hand. What would she give to hold Oksana’s?

            Anna steers them away from the Moskva. “I’m hungry,” she says. “How do you feel about bread?”

            All too quickly the afternoon slips into evening. They have dinner at a restaurant in the heart of the city, an old place with a new name and management, and by the time they’re walking back to the car the light is fading, turning gold, making silhouettes of the buildings and the people. Their hands meet over the CD compartment.

            “I had a good time,” Max says softly.

            “Me too,” Anna says. It had been nice, even if there was a strange emptiness expanding inside her chest.

            They arrive home when the light is at its bluest. None of the apartment lights are on; their furniture are shadows against the evening backdrop. Anna slips her shoes and jacket off, hangs the jacket by the door, next to Max’s. She steps to him, wraps her arms around him, staying there for several minutes before leaning up to kiss him. She shuts her eyes, gets lost in the gentleness of it, how she wishes the lips were softer, fuller, and the body in her arms was Oksana. The shame of it eats away at her throat, makes it tighter, yet she continues anyway, dragging him with her into the bedroom, wishing that kissing him enough, letting him inside her when their clothes are scattered about the room, would change him into the person she’s been aching for all evening long.

            “Okay?” he asks afterwards, brushing strands of hair from Anna’s face with his gentle fingers. She can only nod. The shaking isn’t from her orgasm. She puts a hand against his bare chest, gently pushing him away so that she can get out from underneath him.

            “I’ll be a minute,” she says, gathering clean clothes. She stays underneath the too-hot spray in the shower for half an hour, wanting to vomit, wanting to run, do _something_ to redeem herself. If she even deserves it, she thinks, forehead falling onto her knees. Am I now even worthy of such a thing?

 

—

“Page 113 is a little bit of a prelude to this next unit but it builds on the last one, and as you can see, there are gaps in the prose.” She circles a few on the transparent overhead in red Vis a Vis marker. “You’ll need to fill these with the correct words.”

            “Could we get a hint?” asks Misha from the back.

            “The first one’s been done for you,” Anna says, “but would you mind reading it aloud for us, Misha?”

            He does, and takes a minute to answer back. “It’s past tense.”

            “There’s your hint, everyone,” Anna says, and there are a few scattered chuckles. “So, you’re free to begin; I’ll be grading but still available.”

            Everyone scrambles for pens and their bright verb conjugation sheets, and soon the sounds of writing fill the room. Oksana, however, is stock still, pen hovering over the white sheet of paper. She’s got her hair tied back into a low, professional bun, revealing earlobes with small, silver hoop earrings in them, and the pastel blue of her sweater makes her eyes, normally so brown-green, look greyer. She stands out this way too, Anna thinks. She chooses colors that compliment her, uncaring that they’re bright. And still she’s beautiful. Oksana tucks a loose strand of hair behind her ear and her gaze falls on Anna, eyes travelling over her slowly, lingering at her legs before going back up. Head reeling, having been caught in the act, Anna lowers herself slowly into her chair. Grading is impossible with such a gaze on her; it doesn’t matter how many times she looks away or angles her chair so that Oksana is catty-corner from her shoulder. It’s like the art in museums: her eyes keep going back, staring, until something snatches her attention. She feels warm. A nervous sweat has made her hands slick, her shirt sticking uncomfortably to the undersides of her arms.

            And suddenly it becomes too much, Oksana’s gaze on her, that mask of attentiveness, and Anna’s head is swimming like she’ll soon pass out. She supports herself on her desk, tells the students to start translating page 115 when they’ve finished with 113, and excuses herself from the room, uncaring that several concerned glances follow her out the door. She takes unsteady breaths out in the hallway, trembling, feeling too hot. Her door opens, revealing Oksana, and Anna curses. “ _God._ ” She turns away but there’s nowhere to go.

            “Are you all right?” Oksana whispers.

            “You’re not thinking about the assignments,” Anna hisses, hating how anxious she sounds. “You’re… you’re staring at me.”

            “You don’t like my attention to you?”

            “It has to stop!” she says. “God, it has to, I can’t stand it, your stupid beauty…”

            “Beauty?” Oksana questions, sounding bewildered.

            And oh, she’d said it. So clearly. Anna takes several breaths. “I can’t have you looking at me like that,” she murmurs.

            Oksana straightens. “I’ll make it easy for you. I will leave, and take my stupid beauty with me.” She’s a rush of air disappearing into the classroom and reappearing with her belongings, walking briskly to the stairs that will take her to the first floor and away from the school.

 

—

Oksana’s absence is strongly felt. It’s a mixture of strangeness, emptiness, and relief. Strange because when someone is there every day you grow used to seeing them and when they’re gone the air feels off; emptiness because, even though Oksana doesn’t speak up in class, it’s quiet and Anna misses her; relief because for what feels like a first time she is able to get through the class without distractions or intimate thoughts clouding her brain. But on the second day it’s too much, it’s gaping, and so, after a short lunch and cigarette break in the cool courtyard, Anna sneaks into the records office and uses their outdated computer to look up Oksana’s school file. The two incidents are glaring at her when she scans the digitized page and she wishes she could erase them but they must be kept. She scrolls down until she finds Oksana’s mobile number. She scribbles it onto a nearby paper scrap, then logs out, shuts the machine down. There’s still ten minutes of lunch left by the time she gets back to her room. Anna shuts the door, puts the number into the keypad. Presses the green call button.

            It rings once, twice, then, _“Hello?”_

“Oksana,” Anna says, and then is incapable of saying much else for long seconds. On the other end of the line is traffic noise.

            _“How did you get my number?”_

“I looked it up.” A horn honks, someone curses. “Where are you?”

            _“Café downtown.”_

“Did you walk?”

            _“No. I got a ride. Had to flash him for it.”_

“Oh, my god,” Anna says, face turning warm. “You didn’t.”

            Oksana laughs, a strange, high-pitched sound, oddly endearing. _“I’m joking. I stuck out my thumb.”_ Rustling reaches Anna’s ears, a bag of some kind. _“Why are you calling me?”_

Anna sighs, pinches the bridge of her nose. “I want you to come back.”

            Silence. Then, _“When?”_

“After school. Just… let me see you in person.”

            Another pause, more honking, another curse. _“I’ll be there,”_ Oksana says, and clicks off.

 

            Clouds have built up again. Anna sees them outside her windows, a bright steel-grey, promising a light rain instead of a heavy one. She’s putting rubber bands around her stacks of papers when her door opens. Oksana comes in, hair ruffled, looking as if she’d sprinted here, or drove in someone’s convertible car. She shuts the door behind her.

            “You keep your word, don’t you?” Anna says softly.

            “You wanted me back. Don’t waste my time.”

            “I’ve wasted enough of it as it is.” Anna flicks her lamp off. She steps from behind her desk, to Oksana, hesitating for a moment before setting a hand on her wrist. “Come here.” She lets Oksana step into her embrace, lets her wrap her arms around her first before Anna returns the hug, sighing, breathing her in. The door is closed, and so it’s perfectly fine to tighten her hold on Oksana. She says, “I’m sorry for snapping at you.” How strange it is to be this close to her, to feel each breath Oksana takes, every thought simmering underneath her skin. And oh, she doesn’t deserve to be kicked out of class; nothing that happened has been her fault. All the while she’d blamed Oksana, her beauty, when it was Anna’s own fault for looking in the first place. “I won’t expel you from my class again.”

            “I appreciate it,” Oksana says, and despite herself, Anna chuckles.

            She pulls back, puts a polite distance between them. “Let’s get out of here.”


	8. The Fall

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks to Dani for both making sure I finish this and for bursting my bubble by telling me that Moscow is 20 hours away from Perm by car; for the sake of the story, we're gonna pretend, for now, it's not 20 hours; please forgive me! 
> 
> Sexual content in this chapter.

The last few weeks have felt like a strange dream, the kind of dream where everything is stretched and surreal, with twinges of nostalgic color. They’ve blurred together as dreams often do and Anna remembers only pieces, but these pieces are bright, fully developed. They were sharing glances and courtyard talks, innocent-looking things that weighed on Anna’s mind, made her think of Oksana while masturbating, while in bed with Max, while not doing either of those things, and suddenly they’re in her clunker of a car and driving away from the school.

            “Where are we going?” Oksana asks. “This isn’t the way to your apartment.”

            “It’s the back way,” Anna says. “I like to take the scenic view sometimes.”

            “Not very scenic. Perm has boring buildings and boring trees.”

            “Some people would say it’s part of its charm.”

            Oksana scoffs. “The only charm is in this car.” She rolls the window down a little and the breeze blows her hair off her shoulders and away from her left eye. “You didn’t answer my question.”

            Anna swallows, suddenly nervous. “Dinner.”

            Oksana turns her gaze to her. “Out somewhere?”

            “One of my favorite restaurants. It’s in downtown Moscow. I thought we could do something different, you know? Change the routine.”

            Oksana hums. “Casual place?”

            “Yes. Nice though. Good bread.”

            “Is bread your favorite thing?”

            “I could live off it,” Anna replies.

            “Prison food. You’d live off that. Pure carbs.”

            “At least it’s filling.”

            Back at the apartment, Anna changes into pants and a light brown turtleneck sweater while Oksana browses the bookshelves behind the cactus chair. She’s holding _Les Misérables_ when Anna emerges from her bedroom, flipping through the pages with a delicate touch.

            “All in French,” Oksana says.

            “The proper way to read it. It was a nightmare to get through the first time.”

            “Can’t imagine why.” Oksana shuts it, puts it back in its place. “I have something for you.” She searches through her satchel and pulls out a simple but elegant black box, a ribbon tied into a bow around it. Anna steps forward, accepts it uncertainly. “Go on,” Oksana says, waving a hand. “It won’t bite.”

            It seems a shame to unwrap such a pretty thing, but if she doesn’t, Oksana would do it herself. Anna undoes the bow, takes the lid off. Underneath is tissue paper, smelling like a mix of different perfumes and the inside of a department store. Anna parts it carefully, revealing a cerulean scarf. It’s designer brand, Nina Ricci, according to the box, made of fine fabric, soft to the touch but thick.

            “Where did you get this?” Anna asks, holding it in her hands, unable to stop touching it.

            “Do you like it?

            “It’s beautiful.”

            “Let me see it on you,” Oksana says, and takes the scarf from Anna’s hands to wrap it gently around her neck. She steps back to admire her handiwork. “Oh, blue suits you.”

            “It won’t go with my other outfits,” Anna says, and Oksana blows through her lips.

            “I’ll just have to buy you outfits it’ll go with,” she says.

            Anna says nothing for a moment, eventually throwing her hands up. “Thank you. It’s… I love it.”

            Oksana seems pleased. “Wear it to dinner.”

 

            Their table is by a window, offering a view of an avenue, the many varieties of cars that drive it, its neon lights, and buildings. Passersby glance in the window but their eyes don’t linger. Once seated, Anna undoes the scarf but lets the two sides dangle. The last time she’d been here had been with Max, a few months ago, and it seems so strange to be at this place without him, with Oksana sitting across from her. Anna is thrumming with a sort of nervous excitement. She’d imagined a handful of things, but this scenario was never one of them. And while it’s true that she’s been to dinner with students before, it was never one-on-one, and certainly not with one she’d developed feelings for. She tells herself it’s casual. She tells herself that if anyone asks about the two of them, Oksana is her niece.

            A waiter brings a jar of ice water, two glasses, and two menus. He departs to a different table after telling them he’ll return. Anna’s curiosity is brimming, now that they’re properly sat down. She knows a little about Oksana from what she’s observed but it isn’t enough. She wants the full picture.

            “Are you interested in anyone?” Anna asks. “You seemed to like Augustine.” Enough to have sex with her in the supply closet, is the unsaid statement. Oksana’s eyes narrow slightly, searching Anna’s face.

            “She’s okay,” Oksana says at last. “Pretty, but too quiet.”

            “Not much of a talker?”

            “More like moaner, but that too.”

            Anna nearly gapes. She pours herself ice water, takes a sip. “So,” she manages, “no one, then.”

            “Not really.”

            “And your classes? You haven’t really told me about them.”

            Oksana waves a hand. “They’re not important. Russian history is extensive and the work is fucking ridiculous; physics is boring.” A pause. “Your class is the only one that interests me.”

            The waiter returns, as promised, and asks if they’d like something else besides water. Oksana declines. Anna requests a glass of red wine. He jots it down and departs again.

            “What makes Russian history’s work ridiculous?” Anna asks.

            “The assignments,” Oksana replies. “They’re like reading Tolstoy’s novels every week.” The waiter comes back with Anna’s wine and for food orders. They select their dishes and then, when he’s out of earshot, Oksana continues, “Are you really interested in what I think of school?”

            “Yes,” Anna replies, “but there are other things.” She reaches for her wine instead of her water, downs another sip. “I want to know your history.”

            “It isn’t very pleasant.”

            “I’m used to unpleasantness.”

            Oksana’s fingers drum on the tabletop. “My father was a drunk. My mother died of cancer. I don’t remember if her death caused his drinking or if he was always like that.” A short, humorless chuckle escapes her lips. “She married a brute.”

            “I’m sorry,” Anna says, feeling foolish that she can’t say something better.

            “Why are you used to unpleasantness?” Oksana asks. The look on her face is of genuine curiosity, and she looks almost eager, so attentive. Anna trusts her, and so after a moment of hesitation, she says, “For one, my… parents were quite strict. They wanted to show me the world but only by what they thought I should see.” She tells Oksana about growing up with opera and classical music being played in the house and how she would accompany her parents to concerts once the season began, she tells Oksana about the album of travel pictures her parents had kept. “It was populated by Paris,” she says. “Half that album was just pictures of Paris. I fell in love the first time I saw them. I’d stare for hours and just dream of myself there.” She wets her throat with wine just as their food arrives. Oksana had ordered a beef dish, and as soon as the waiter is gone, she digs in almost greedily.

            “Did they ever take you?” Oksana asks around a mouthful.

            “No,” Anna replies. “I asked them why not, they said I had all I needed in Russia.”

            Oksana makes a displeased sound. She wipes the corners of her mouth with her napkin. “How can you learn about the world when you aren’t allowed to travel around it?”

            “My reasoning exactly,” Anna says, “and I told them as much, but they were stubborn.” A pause. “I would beg them to take me to anything French that was being performed. So, besides pictures, those were the little glimpses of France that I got.” Anna takes tentative bites of her solyanka soup, stirs it when thinking. “I told Max that one day, if I had the money, I would just drop everything and move to Paris, and he could come with me.” She shakes her head. “Such a silly thing.”

            Oksana’s fork scrapes against her plate. She shoves the last bit of beef between her lips and, once she’s swallowed the bite, drags a finger through the grease and sauce on the plate and licks it off. “You don’t have the money,” Oksana says, “else you would be gone by now.”

            Anna nods. “Maybe so.”

            “Why did you stay in shitty Perm, then?”

            “I fell in love.” With many things. Max, the smaller city’s charm, the school, her job. She continues, “There were sad things that happened to students when I first began teaching. In my third year, there was one student, Oleg. He was… very bright, excelled in everything thrown at him. One day he wasn’t there, and it was odd, because he never missed.” She clears her throat, finds it’s a little harder to eat her soup. “His mother came to tell me he’d died. Jumped off a bridge.” She pushes her soup aside and takes a breath to steady herself.

            “Did you like him?” Oksana asks.

            “Very much.” Anna wipes her eyes with her napkin and a small, short laugh escapes. “God, I’m sorry.”

            “Don’t be. It’s good you care. Not a lot of teachers do.”

            Anna reaches across the table and squeezes Oksana’s hand. When the waiter comes back, she orders a bottle of the wine she’d been drinking.

 

            “Give me your keys,” Oksana says.

            Anna hands them over, lets Oksana help her into the passenger seat. Surely Oksana knows the way back.

            It feels like she’s in a dream. The world is adrift, everything turning into a soft haze, the lights bright and noisy. Even Oksana is far away, though Anna knows all she has to do is reach a little and her fingertips would brush her sweater. She’s driving with one hand and the other is on the CD compartment. What would happen if Anna were to take it, intertwine their fingers? Would the touch go on for a few seconds before Oksana pulled her hand away and into her lap? Or would she stay? Anna ignores the itch, chalking it down to her wine consumption.

            At her door, she cups Oksana’s face, saying nothing for a long moment. Then, “Thank you for driving me.” Her most sober-sounding sentence tonight. “Goodnight, Oksana.”

 

—

Oksana’s hair is fine and silky between her fingers, and for a moment Anna imagines burying her hands in it, caressing it while she lets Oksana kiss her. She wraps the strand around her curling iron, waits, and releases it. It settles on Oksana’s shoulder and together they study her reflection in the vanity mirror. With her darker eye makeup and her now-curled hair and her classic black dress, she looks like some sort of angel.

            “I think you’re ready,” Anna says, unplugging the iron, “unless you’d like it pinned up?”

            “It’s fine.” Oksana stands, exits the bathroom, comes back shrugging her jacket on. “You good?”

            Instead of taking Anna’s car, they take a cab into Moscow.

            The night is lovely and cool, the sun nearly gone, leaving blue light in its place. It’s nearly dark by the time they get into Moscow; the city is already sparkling with lights. The concert they’re seeing tonight isn’t focused on one composer but three: Chopin, Holst, and Vaughn Williams. A variety whose music is very different from each other, and Anna is eager to see how they’ll blend together. They show their tickets at the entrance to the auditorium and find their balcony seats. Eyes linger on Oksana and it’s tempting to turn their heads away.

            The concert begins with Vaughn Williams and his melancholy yet intimate music. Anna finds herself leaning a little to her right, towards Oksana. Their arms share the armrest between them, and Oksana’s pinky grazes Anna’s until they’re almost intertwined. It’s not more than that. Vaughn Williams concludes, then it’s Chopin, whose music Anna would say is a little bouncier than Vaughn Williams; they play a few of his waltzes and nocturnes, all composed for piano, and they sound a little like Debussy, she thinks, but the notes are shorter instead of long and graceful. Anna hasn’t heard much of Chopin’s work; her parents had played mostly Russian composers, and so she listens closely, aware that Oksana’s attention is on her and not on the stage. After Chopin, it’s intermission.

            “You liked that one,” Oksana says in the bathroom.

            “Chopin was unheard of in my childhood,” Anna says. “My parents played a lot of Russian composers.”

            “Boring,” Oksana remarks, and Anna laughs.

            Back from intermission, the concert concludes with Holst and his most famous composition, _The Planets_. It’s the only work that’s played, and it gets a standing ovation from the audience. During the chaos, Oksana reaches over to an edge of Anna’s jacket, knuckle grazing the top of her left breast. She says, “You’re shit at ironing, aren’t you?” and her hand floats back to her side. Anna can say nothing. There’s a hot coal just above her heart.

 

            They don’t go back right away. It’s only after nine o’clock at night, still young by city standards, and so, arm in arm, they walk the Red Square, keep going until they reach the Moskva. Other couples sit on the concrete ledges, enjoying the late fall air, smoking cigarettes, kissing. When Anna puts a cigarette between her lips it tastes bitter. These couples can hold each other’s hands, lean in for a kiss, and no one would want to push them into the river and watch them drown. Oksana’s presence beside her makes her itch all over, and her hands ache for her. Their shoulders barely brush when they turn to gaze out across the water.

            “I could spend hours out here,” Anna says. “Something about water and seeing the city sparkle on it is enchanting.”

            “It’s nice,” Oksana says. “I have the best view of one of Russia’s most marvelous sights.”

            She isn’t even looking at the water now, and Anna gives her a soft slap to the arm. “You flirt,” she murmurs, face hot despite the cold starting to eat away at it. She takes two more drags on her cigarette before grinding it out and throwing it over the edge. The splash is barely visible. They say nothing for a while, just sit in the sounds of nightlife, enjoying each other’s company.

            “All right,” Anna says finally, “let’s go; I’m cold.”

            They walk from the Moskva and into the sea of skyscrapers and modern buildings, where Anna hails a cab to take them home. Oksana holds the door for her and she slides in, nose assaulted by artificial pine. Oksana takes the seat to Anna’s right, shuts the door. Anna tells the cabbie her address and they’re off, the heater blowing warm air.

            “That was better than the opera you took me to,” Oksana says. “Still boring, but no bleeding ears.”

            “If ever there’s a concert dedicated to national anthems,” Anna says, “I’ll get us front-row seats.”

            “Sure your ears can handle such patriotic things?”

            Anna rolls her eyes, face breaking into a smile. Silence settles over them, swimming with the noise of the car, the soft traditional music drifting from the cab’s speakers, the light of streetlights breaking the shadows in uneven pieces. It’s the opposite of an uncomfortable silence, Anna realizes. It’s intimate. The kind that doesn’t have to be filled with words. Oksana moves, and there’s a warm hand sliding into hers, lacing their fingers together, moving both their hands so that they’re on Anna’s thigh. It’s light, at first, an innocent touch, and still it makes Anna’s heart speed up. Then it becomes weighty and travels slowly higher, until Oksana’s thumb is brushing the inside of Anna’s thigh. Anna chews the inside of her cheek, looks at Oksana, whose face, half-lit by city lights, is tense with want. The hand travels higher, pressing between her legs. Her head falls against the seat and her eyes close; she can only feel Oksana’s shirtsleeve under her hand and the pressure, the teasing, between her thighs. It feels good, like sin should feel, it makes her moan softly, and her breathing speeds up when Oksana kisses the corner of her jaw, moves up to her ear to take the lobe between her teeth. The harder press of Oksana’s palm makes her shudder and realize _what_ they’re doing. Anna squeezes Oksana’s wrist, torn between tearing it away and letting that hand slip inside her jeans but whispers, in a strained voice, “I’m married.”

            Oksana visibly stiffens and she snatches her hand away from Anna, curled into a fist. They’re pulling into Anna’s neighborhood. Anna can’t see Oksana’s eyes but knows they aren’t the gentle kind she’d seen all evening. “You think I give a shit?” she says, voice quiet but hard. She turns to the cabbie and tells him, “Let me out here.” The apartment is only a block away.

            “Oksana,” Anna says, reaching for her, but she’s already slipping out the door.

 

—

Her hands shake when she lights her cigarette. She clenches them into fists, stretches them, rubs them with the pad of her thumbs, but it’s no use. Frustrated, she puts one in her lap and uses the other to hold her cigarette. She takes several drags. It’s almost down to the filter when Oksana comes through the double doors and sits beside her. They don’t look at each other. Oksana’s gaze is across the yard, at the group of boys playing with a colorful hacky-sack. Her posture is straight. She says, “You’re driving me mad.”

            Anna shuts her eyes, nearly inhales the filter of her cigarette. She holds it firmly between her fingers. “ _Not here_ ,” she says.

            “Then where, Anna?”

            She could scream. Right now. Burst her throat open while she’s at it. But she doesn’t. It would draw a crowd. Anna stubs her cigarette out and abandons Oksana on the bench, chest tight with something she can’t identify. All she knows is Oksana is driving her mad too.

           

            Max is tugging on his jacket, telling Anna from their bedroom that he won’t be back until early morning. He returns to the kitchen, where Anna has attempted to do the dinner dishes; her hands are just plunged into the soapy water, floating like dead men.

            “All right?” he says, setting a gentle hand on her shoulder.

            She wants to speak, wants to tell him something, but the words never make it past her teeth. She only gives a little nod, hoping he can’t see just how tight her jaw is. Max gives her shoulder a squeeze, and then he’s leaving, shutting the door softly behind him.

            Not minutes after Max leaves there is an insistent knock at the door. If it’s that damn neighbor Anna swears to Christ—

            No neighbor at all, but Oksana, dressed in dark jeans and a sweater (a different outfit from earlier), face half-hidden by hair and hallway shadows. Something makes its way into Anna’s throat, that hot lump of steel, preventing her voice from rising any higher than a soft, “Oksana.” The girl lets herself in. “Max is here,” Anna says.

            “Oh, that’s funny,” Oksana says. “I just saw him leave.”

            The hot steel turns to acid, and for the first time since meeting her, Anna feels fear settle in her muscles. Her mouth won’t work and so she turns her back, walks further into the apartment, giving Oksana a clear message that she isn’t welcome right now but it’s for naught; a hand grips one arm, spins her around, grips the other, and the force is so bruising that Anna swears there’ll be marks all the way down to her bones. She’s pinned, trapped against the wall just outside the kitchen, nearly vomiting her heart at the realization of how strong Oksana is, how _dark_ the look on her face is.

            “I’m sick of you playing with me,” Oksana says. “You said you can’t stand the way I look at you, but have you thought about the way you look at _me?_ ” She’s close enough that Anna can smell her, it’s clouding her senses, her judgement. “You want me, Anna.” Her name on Oksana’s lips, in such a context, shouldn’t make her knees feel like candle wax but suddenly it becomes harder to hold herself against the wall. “You want me, don’t you?”

            She opens her mouth to answer, to say no, just as Oksana’s hands release their grip on her arms and travel to both sides of her neck, caressing it. She could faint, they’re so close, almost kissing. Fear and adrenaline and lust turn her insides to rot and she doesn’t realize her lip is trembling until Oksana’s thumb brushes over it.

            “Do you think about me,” she continues, “when you touch yourself?”

            Anna releases a breath. The words settle, deep and demanding, between her thighs, and Oksana’s hand moves from her throat to trace them, repeating the action from the cab. She bites the inside of her cheek to keep from moaning; it would tell her everything, even though Anna is so transparent Oksana already knew she’d thought about her in that way.

            “I have,” Oksana says, voice a murmur against the shell of Anna’s ear, “so many times.” She follows with teeth. “What you’d taste like, if you’d shout or try so hard to be quiet when I put my mouth on you, if you’d beg… I’ve seen you fighting with yourself, all the time—right now, even.” A thumb strokes right over her hammering pulse. “You don’t have to fight yourself, Anna,” she whispers. “ _Je sais ce que vous avez besoin maintenant.”_

            Anna’s chest swells with emotions just as she whimpers, shame and lust and guilt and all Oksana has to do is slip her hand up Anna’s skirt to see just how badly she’s wanted her for weeks and god, she can’t fight her anymore; it’s completely useless, and so she buries her hands in Oksana’s dark hair and pulls her roughly in to crash their lips together. The kiss is like a dream, hurried and passionate. Oksana’s lips are soft, insistent, gentle against Anna’s own despite the earlier roughness of her hands. She slips her tongue between Anna’s teeth and Anna moans, accepts it, goes in for more.

            “So you do like French kissing,” Oksana says, sounding pleased. Her hands find Anna’s breasts, cupping them, taking their weight and Anna wonders how long she’d wanted to do this. Perhaps since the opera, and the concerts after that; the touches had seemed accidental but, as Oksana’s thumbs press into her nipples and brush them, Anna realizes they’d been entirely purposeful.

            Another kiss, and then they’re walking backwards, to the bedroom, and her heart is about to slip from her mouth and onto the floor. Oksana is taller by a mere few inches and yet it feels like she’s towering over her, like Anna is already on her knees in some sort of submission and maybe that’s what this is after all, submitting to these feelings while they manifest themselves in her gut, her chest, between her thighs. She falls back, spread out, in awe of the girl crawling over her, afraid of what’s next.

            “What’re we doing?” she asks breathlessly.

            Oksana kisses her again, slips tongue into it. “ _Ne parle pas,_ ” she says, and her lips are on Anna’s throat, travelling up to her ear, biting down on her lobe—an action that makes Anna’s hips twitch. “I am going to take you.”

            Anna inhales at the words and oh, god, there are fingers undoing the buttons on her shirt. Her stomach twists, in both excitement and nervousness; she’s only ever been seen by Max and the boyfriends that came before him. Never by a girl, unless she counts the communal showers at the college she’d attended, though none of them had ever been lovers. The last button slips and Oksana parts the two sides and she’s staring and Anna’s cheeks feel like hot coals. Oksana leans to kiss her again and she says, “They’re lovely.” There had been touches before, a knuckle or a palm purposefully grazing over a breast when Oksana had pretended to fix Anna’s clothes and just minutes ago, but never skin against skin and it feels like too much but so wonderful. Anna’s almost pressing into the touches. Her breathing becomes unstable when thumbs brush her nipples, properly now, when Oksana kisses over her sternum.

            “Shit,” Anna breathes when lips find a nipple, sending sparks flying through her bones. It’s so different. Max is gentle when kissing her breasts; Oksana is relentless, teasing but passionate; Anna wants her to stay there forever, kiss all the way down to her beating red heart. But she doesn’t stay, she moves lower until her mouth is level with the waistband of Anna’s skirt. She looks up and it hits Anna like a brick. How black her eyes are! How predatory, how wanting… “Yes,” she says. “Yes.”

            “I can smell you,” Oksana says, amusement in her voice but slight breathlessness too; Anna has never heard her like this.

            “Oh god, that’s embarrassing…” But she can feel it, that slippery want between her thighs, and is almost ashamed of it.

            Oksana hikes her skirt up until the hem is resting about her hips. She slides Anna’s underwear off and she stares stares stares, noting every exposed inch. Anna’s afraid she’ll see her heart pounding in two different places. She moves her hand to her thigh, murmurs, “Don’t stare,” but Oksana takes that hand and kisses it before setting it aside. Their eyes meet again and Anna swears her soul leaves her body at how dark Oksana’s are. She whimpers, feeling hot and swollen and it spurs Oksana into action, who leans down and kisses Anna’s thighs, all the while putting her spread legs over her shoulders. The first touch makes Anna gasp, even if it’s only a finger, stroking up, down, and shit, her legs are already trembling.

            “What’re you doing?” she asks. “What…?”

            “Are you scared?” Oksana asks gently.

            “Yes,” Anna admits, nodding feverishly.  

            Oksana climbs back up, straddles her, kisses her. “I’ll never hurt you,” she murmurs, “but I will ruin you.” And she kisses down, down, down, takes Anna’s legs over her shoulders again and her mouth is on her and Anna moans, whispers, “Oh god, oh god…” at the first touch of tongue. It’s slow, at first, and her fingernails scratch lightly over the tops of Anna’s thighs, move up to tease her nipples, move back down to grip her hips. A finger slips inside and Anna can’t look down; she throws her head back, buries her fingers in Oksana’s soft hair, trying to remember the time she last felt this worshiped, this strung out. Oksana’s tongue graces over the most sensitive part of her and Anna nearly cries out, says, “Oh god, please, darling,” heart leaping at Oksana’s groan. The room is too hot, she doesn’t know how Oksana can stand to be fully dressed in a room that feels like the center of the Earth and she shudders at the thought of her naked, of their skin sticking together for hours and only separated once they’ve rolled to their respective sides of the bed. Another finger slides inside and curls and she puts her hand over her mouth to stop whatever slips out but it’s no use. “Oksana…” She’s close. So close. She shuts her eyes, whimpers when Oksana takes her mouth away.

            “Look at me, Anna. Look at me.”

            Anna obeys, with effort, and Oksana praises her in French, tells her, “Don’t look away,” and dives back in, relentless.

            “I can’t, I can’t…” Her brain has become a jumble of things; she opens her mouth and she doesn’t know what she’s saying, only pleasured things. “Please, darling, please…” So close. So fucking close. She looks and looks, can’t tear her eyes away because it would mean Oksana would stop, leave her lingering at the point of no return. She watches her own body curl in on itself as orgasm hits, nearly shouting, and then, when Oksana doesn’t pull away, “Oksana I can’t, darling, I can’t…” She twitches at the sucking and oh god, she’s being built up to another, so quickly; it only takes two minutes. She muffles the cry in her hand, takes it away when she feels Oksana leaning over her. Their lips meet in a clumsy kiss and she tastes herself, feels Oksana’s thumbs stroking her cheeks and God has she really just done this?

            “Look at me,” Oksana says softly. Anna does. “Are you crying?”

            Shit, is she? She touches underneath her eyes, finds them wet. “I must be,” she says, and can’t help but laugh.


	9. La Vita Nuova

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Title taken from Dante's sonnet "La Vita Nuova," which was translated by Dante Gabriel Rossetti.  
> \--  
> If you'd like someone to blame for the direction this chapter went, blame Dani. It's very steamy.
> 
> Also, you may have noticed the title has changed. I felt the new title suited the story better. Sometimes you write things and realize halfway through that the original title doesn't fit. Stories are dickswabs like that.

For the first time in a long while, Anna gets coffee from the teachers’ lounge on the first floor. Her eyes are sagging and she feels as if she’s stooping as she walks. She lost sleep the night before, plunging into a void of thoughts, almost vomiting from guilt when she realized she wouldn’t be able to sleep with Max so close. Eventually she’d scooted to the very edge of the bed and drifted off for a handful of hours. Everything is suddenly heavy; the idea of lectures and assignments and speaking in general makes her wish she’d stayed home. Being lively, she thinks, stepping carefully into her unoccupied classroom, may not be in the cards today.

            They had kissed for minutes afterwards, until Anna’s tears had subsided and the euphoria of earlier faded into something softer, something not quite happy. After Oksana had left, she’d done nothing but lay in the middle of the bed, limbs and clothes spread like she was making a snow angel, unfeeling. Even now she can recall the kisses, little ghosts caressing her lips, the places underneath her clothes. Anna puts a hand over her heart, tells herself to breathe. She won’t be seeing Oksana until four hours from now. She has time to pull herself together, to prepare. And oh, why does this feel like some sort of fucking test? A trial? God has a plan but surely this mustn’t be part of it, surely _this_ , wasn’t meant to come up.

            In the moments she isn’t lecturing or helping a student with a troubling part of an assignment, she’s praying. Not with hands clasped or eyes closed; just in her head. Asking for forgiveness, wondering if there is redemption from such exquisite indulgence in sin. And when she isn’t praying her mind is traitorous and replays the things that’d happened the night before, the snippets grainy but bright, like old home movies. Her throat tightens and her eyes sting. She had cried not only because she was overwhelmed after experiencing two intense orgasms, but because they had felt, in a way, like betrayal. She’d betrayed Max, started a small fire on the bridge they’d built together over the last twelve years, and for what? For a girl thirteen years her junior? For momentary relief? Now she must pretend. Put on masks like they do in theatre and act as if nothing has changed between them.

            Four hours slip by and Anna uses the reprieve to step into the staff bathroom and splash her face with icy water. She shuts her eyes, leans over the sink. Prays, again, for forgiveness, for redemption. “I pray You still love me,” she whispers. She stands a moment longer, watches the water swirl around the silver drain, until she feels she can face whatever this hour will throw at her.

            Oksana is buried in a book. A library sticker is stuck to the dark blue spine. Anna can’t tell what the book’s title is, but whatever its content, it must be interesting. Oksana’s hair is tied back today, and she’s wearing a heather grey turtleneck with dark jeans. The color brings out the green in her eyes. Anna swallows and turns her back to Oksana, taking her time writing today’s assignment on the chalkboard. She hopes the other students can’t see her hand beginning to tremble.

            The class, for the most part, runs smoothly. There’s the introductory lecture and the writing assignment, and then the homework assignment from the rarely-used textbook. While Anna passes the homework out, her eyes keep meeting Oksana’s, causing her heart to catch in both elation and some unidentifiable negative emotion. When the class ends, this negative emotion expands until it’s all she can think of. Oksana lingers by her desk and asks, “Will you be coming down?”

            “I have grading,” Anna says, throwing open her desk drawer and fetching a red pen. “Why don’t you talk to Augustine?”

            “She isn’t as interesting.”

            “You’re keeping me from this, Oksana. Please,” she says, as gently as possible, “go to the courtyard.” Oksana’s lips part several times and all Anna can see, despite their attempts to form words, is how full they are and how much she wants to kiss them. In the end Oksana nods. The door closes loudly behind her.

            Anna sits unsteadily in her chair. There’s this thing between them now, something she can pretend never happened, lie about, but there is no denying the truth, particularly when it’s written on Oksana’s face.

            Anna doesn’t do her grading. She finds her cigarettes and goes for her smoke break in the staff parking lot instead of the bench in the courtyard. This, she thinks, taking a long drag, changes everything. The line between them had once been so distinguished and now it’s blurred. They are still teacher and student but they are something else, something not that. And what does it mean for Anna, now that she’s kissed Oksana, had sex with her? Is there something awakening? Or is the girl just an exception to a hard-coded rule? A teacher that Anna doesn’t know the name of, a younger woman, passes her, her arms cradling cardboard boxes filled with art supplies. She’s pretty, her blonde hair bright, her body a good shape, Anna supposes, and yet she feels no stir of attraction, no desire to get to know her.

            Her advanced class starts in five minutes, but Anna lingers by her Volkswagen and smokes a second cigarette.

 

            “You’ve smoked more than your usual amount.”

            Anna jumps, nearly drops the papers she’s organizing. Oksana closes the classroom door behind her and comes to stand at the front of Anna’s desk. Anna says, “It’s been a long day.” She rearranges the stack of papers and fastens them with a large binder clip. “Is there something you need?”

            “Did you like it?” Oksana asks.

            “Oksana,” Anna sighs.

            “You did, didn’t you?”

            Anna shoves the papers into her bag, fastens the thing a little too roughly.

            Oksana continues, “You’ve thought about it all day. It’s why you smoked so much.”

            “What the hell do you want?” Anna whispers.

            “You. But if you don’t want me to come home with you,” Oksana walks around the desk until she’s standing too close, “I’ll find someone else.”

            She sets her jaw at the acidic flare of jealousy that eats her veins but it dissipates quickly, turning to warmth at how close Oksana is. Anna turns off her desk lamp, gathers her things, and pushes past Oksana to get out of the stuffy classroom. The girl follows without being told to.

            In the car, Oksana drags her fingernails over the back of Anna’s right hand. The want has already settled between her thighs, a demanding beat accompanied by near-uncomfortable slickness. Her breathing is already elevated to the point where she has to breathe through her mouth to get the air her lungs demand of her. The nails turn into fingertips, and then Oksana’s fingers are sliding between her own, a small act of tenderness. Anna squeezes Oksana’s hand and holds onto it, cherishing it, because she hadn’t been able to do this at the opera, or the other public places they’d gone. Oksana’s hand is warm, slightly larger than her own. Their joining feels a lot like puzzle pieces slotting together.

            As soon as the apartment door is shut, Oksana presses Anna against it and brings their lips together. Anna holds Oksana’s face between her hands, kissing her back gently but hungrily. The earlier guilt fades and desire rushes up, made worse when Oksana slides her leg between Anna’s. The pressure feels good, even if it’s light, and she presses into it, pulls Oksana closer, kisses her softer. She murmurs, after gathering effort, “Take me to bed,” and allows herself to be led there. She falls back and kicks her shoes off while Oksana unties her boots and tosses them hastily to the side. Oksana crawls over her and the kissing resumes, clumsy and heated. Hands work at the buttons on Anna’s blouse until it parts, and then they slide her skirt off. Anna reaches down and manages to undo Oksana’s belt and the button on her jeans but she doesn’t get further, her wrists trapped in one of Oksana’s hands and pinned above her head.

            “Don’t be naughty,” Oksana breathes. “You aren’t ready for that yet.”

            Anna can see, between the barely-parted sides of Oksana’s jeans, a glimpse of plain black underwear and the smallest strip of skin. She imagines kissing her there, wants to know how soft it is. A hand slides into her underwear, presses against her, and Anna shudders, having to grip the sheets because Oksana still has her wrists trapped.

            “You were thinking about me, weren’t you?”

            “Don’t… sound so surprised,” Anna says, blushing at how easily Oksana’s fingers slip against her.

            “Bend your knees,” Oksana murmurs. “Keep them open.” She slides two fingers inside once Anna obeys and starts to take her gently. All the while she leans over Anna, kisses her jaw, her throat. Her breathing is rough too, obviously affected by the sounds escaping Anna’s mouth.

            She presses her palm against her, a firm, rubbing touch, and Anna moans. “Please,” she says.

            Oksana groans and kisses her. “You’re beautiful when you beg.” She picks up the pace and it sends fire curling into Anna’s gut. She’s gasping now, hips chasing the pace almost desperately, getting close.

            “Let me… Let me touch you,” Anna says. “Please.”

            Oksana’s hand tightens around her wrists. “Do you think you’ve earned it?” she asks lowly, and it’s what drives Anna over the edge. Oksana doesn’t try to silence her through it, merely slows the pace of her fingers and then, when the bliss has made Anna nearly limp, withdraw them and slide down, taking Anna’s underwear with her to taste her. Anna can do nothing but bury one hand in Oksana’s hair, her hips twitching at every stroke of tongue lapping gently. Then the sucking starts and she gasps, nearly pushes Oksana away because it’s so sensitive and Oksana pulls back, asks, “Too much?”

            God, she’s nearly dying, and she shakes her head no, whispers, “Please, darling,” and Oksana starts again, gentler this time. She only lasts a minute, and then she comes loudly undone against Oksana’s mouth. Oksana drags fingers over her until Anna is still, collapsed on the bed, exhausted. She crawls back up and gives Anna soft kisses, then pulls away, unashamedly licking her fingers clean.

            “Oh god, don’t,” Anna says, turning her head away.

            “You get so embarrassed,” Oksana says, and is that fondness in her voice? “You taste nice.” What is there to say to such a thing?

            Anna stretches her arms above her head and lets Oksana kiss her hips, lets her rest her head just above her pubic hair. She cups Oksana’s cheek, runs her thumb over it. The phone rings from its place in the kitchen, rings rings rings, and finally goes to voicemail.

            _“Hi darling,”_ says Max, and Anna’s heart stops. _“Sorry for the late notice, but I’ve gone out of town again. Stupid meetings. You weren’t home at the time, but just thought I’d let you know. I love you.”_ Click.

            “Was that your husband?” Oksana asks. Her breath is warm against Anna’s skin.

            “Yes,” Anna replies softly. She looks about the room and almost hates herself for not noticing the absence of his suitcase. She sighs, lets her fingers travel to the place just above Oksana’s ear, admiring how soft her hair is. Then, “I want some wine.” Anna sits up and Oksana pulls away, watches Anna as she dresses and fixes her blouse. “Would you care for some?”

            “Depends on the wine,” Oksana replies.

            “Red. It’s from France.”

            “I’ll try it. Where’s your bathroom?”

            Minutes later, refreshed, they have their wine in the sitting room, sitting side by side on the loveseat. Golden light leaks through the blinds. So much time has passed and yet it feels none has passed at all.

            Oksana finishes her wine first. She takes the glass to the kitchen, then fetches her shoes from Anna’s bedroom, preparing to leave. Max is gone, the evening is lovely, and the words, “You don’t have to leave,” escape Anna’s mouth of their own accord. Oksana freezes, gazes at her with surprise. Then she unties her boots, sets them by the door.

            “I’ll sleep on your couch,” Oksana says. 

            Despite the earliness of the hour, Anna makes the couch into a temporary bed, tucking a sheet over it, fluffing a spare pillow, and finishing it off with a flannel blanket from the storage closet. They have soup for dinner, and Oksana asks about Anna’s childhood, which she shares until their bowls are empty. Afterwards, Oksana asks, “Could I use your shower?”

            “Of course,” Anna says, taking the dishes into the kitchen. “Razors and toothbrushes are under the sink.”

            While Oksana showers, Anna scrubs the dishes over and over with the rough side of the sponge, cursing herself for such recklessness, letting this girl stay the night. It’s strange, otherworldly, unconventional. Another thing to ask forgiveness for in her rarely-said nightly prayers.

            Oksana emerges from the bathroom dressed in her jeans and sweater, hair wet and darker and smelling like the spare shampoo Anna keeps in the shower caddy. Her eye makeup has run a little under her eyes and it makes her look tired.

            They stay up late talking. Anna tells of her childhood and shows Oksana the photo album she’d nicked from her parents, only going through the ones of Paris. It’s nearly midnight by the time they’re finished and fading. Anna cleans the last of the dishes and the sink, then goes through her own nightly ritual. She comes back to turn the sitting room lights off, and Oksana is sound asleep on the couch.

            She would’ve been more comfortable on the bed, Anna thinks, going to the couch at last to turn the lamp at the end of it off, but she pauses, admiring the beautiful, sleeping girl who is still in her jeans and sweater, her heavy, relaxed breathing, the crease between her brows that tells of dreams. Anna tugs the flannel blanket higher so that it covers Oksana’s shoulder, then reaches out to gently tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. “ _Fais de beaux rêves_ ,” Anna whispers.

            An hour slips by while Anna lies awake in complete darkness, her mind drifting, her thoughts filled with both Oksana and Max, her feelings those of confusion, guilt, and want. She comes back to Earth when the bedroom door opens, revealing the silhouette of Oksana. Anna sits up, taking the covers with her.

            “Could I come in?” Oksana murmurs.

            “Yes,” Anna replies, voice equally soft. Oksana shuts the door and Anna can only see a faint outline in the dark bedroom. There’s the sound of sliding fabric and static and then the bed dips with Oksana’s weight. Anna feels her warmth and reaches for her, her palm grazing what must be Oksana’s bare arm and her stomach jolts. Her hand is captured by Oksana’s.

            “Can I touch you?”

            “Yes,” Anna whispers. Oksana shifts until she’s sitting astride Anna’s lap, and then there are hands in her hair, caressing it, tugging it until the sting is light but lovely. Anna leans for a kiss and Oksana accepts it. It goes on, becomes clumsy and heated, and the hands that were in her hair move to her breasts, cupping them over her thin sleep shirt, squeezing, making Anna moan against Oksana’s mouth. Oksana pulls away, starts tugging Anna’s top up; Anna helps her get it off, and then she’s pushed gently back and there are lips travelling over her chest, teasing a nipple, taking it gently between teeth. Fingers slide her underwear off, hands grip her waist, and then she’s being rolled over, propelled upwards until she realizes, in a mix of horror and surprise, she’s straddling Oksana’s chest. Anna releases a shuddering breath, uncomfortable, scared, aroused. She asks, “What’re you doing?”

            Oksana’s hands travel from her lower back to the backs of her thighs. “I like it like this,” Oksana says. “Stay still.” She’s pushed up, and then downwards until she feels the warmth of Oksana’s mouth against her. She gasps, nearly loses her balance, supports herself on the headboard while Oksana starts to devour her. Anna can’t be still, especially not when Oksana is moaning against her; she can’t help but grind down. Her mouth feels wonderful, her tongue even more so, and those sounds… God, she wonders why Max doesn’t do this, why the boys who’d tried before hadn’t made it feel like anything.

            A hand travels up and teases a breast. “Oh, god,” she moans, her hands burying themselves in Oksana’s hair, nails scraping her scalp, “don’t stop, don’t stop…” So close, so close… “Don’t stop darling…” It overtakes her, and she holds Oksana’s head against her, gasping, and the climax subsides but Oksana doesn’t pull back. Anna tugs her hair, tries to pull away but Oksana stays steadily in place.

            “Don’t fight me,” she says, and goes in gently. Anna shudders at the tone of her voice. She’s trembling, struggling to hold on, and then her breath freezes inside her chest, gets expelled in an almost-shout. It takes all her strength to ride it out and roll off Oksana and onto her side of the bed, sated, exhausted. Oksana leans to her, presses kisses to Anna’s cheek until Anna turns her head to kiss her properly.

            “It’s late,” Anna says at last, cupping Oksana’s face in a tired hand.

            “Do you want me to leave?”

            Anna shakes her head no. Oksana must see it because she settles on the side Max usually occupies. Anna tugs the sheets up to her shoulders to ward off the sudden cool draft from the window.

            Just as she’s drifting off, she feels Oksana’s arm settle over her stomach.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please forgive the anatomical bomb. I sometimes allow myself one per fic, depending on the image I want the reader to see.


	10. As A Fever

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I must apologize for the wait on this update; college has officially started to kick my ass and this chapter was a bit of a struggle. Thanks to Dani/viagiordano for helping with it, especially with some of the dialogue!
> 
> Funny to think that this was supposed to be the last chapter; I didn't realize how out of hand this thing would become, but it's been a joy.
> 
> \--  
> Title from Shakespeare's "Sonnet 147."

There is no morning after, only the cold side of the bed that bears a very faint scent of Oksana, and Anna, tangled in the sheets, still drowsy. She buries her face in the other pillow with a sigh, holding it close. She doesn’t know when Oksana had left; for all she knows, it could’ve been as soon as she’d fallen into dreams. Half of her wishes Oksana had stayed, just so she could experience morning’s intimacy with someone else, but another half is glad to have this moment alone.

            For a while she does nothing but lay there, surrounded by sunlight and Oksana’s fading scent, until hunger demands her to get up. After breakfast, she strips the bed and washes the sheets, pillowcases, and comforter, and while they wash she cleans the apartment, wanting no trace of Oksana for Max to see, even in the bathroom. She does, however, allow herself a moment to smell the spare shampoo that Oksana had used the night before, inhaling deeply, eyes closing, cradling the thing against her chest like some precious bird she’d rescued until duty snaps her back into reality. She puts the bottle back, scrubs the shower floor until it’s a shade lighter than when she’d started, removes the drain to pluck the hair from it. She does the same with the combs and brushes, even though they are details Max doesn’t pay attention to; he’d glance, see that they’ve snagged dark hair, and simply assume every one was Anna’s. When she’s done with it, the bathroom smells like a janitor’s closet, and it makes Anna relax.

            She makes the bed a little later, crouching to tuck the sheets underneath the right side of the mattress, and spots the corner of the black Nina Ricci box. She tugs it from its basket and studies it before lifting the lid. She’d wrapped the scarf carefully in its tissue paper after the night they’d gone to dinner, and when she takes the scarf out and brings it to her nose, she swears there’s still a trace of that restaurant’s smell. She strokes the thing, still amazed how fine it is, and then she wraps it around her neck, wearing it when she finishes making the bed, when she mops the floors in both the kitchen and sitting room and vacuums the loveseat on which Oksana had briefly slept, when she throws the flannel blanket into the wash for good measure. She takes a smoke break close to lunch, sitting by an open window and leaning her head against its frame, wondering what Oksana does with her Saturdays, if she does homework and goes out, if she saves the work for Sunday instead, if she sleeps with someone else. Anna wishes Oksana’s mind would be occupied with her, and blows the smoke to the world like dandelion seeds.

            She’s in the middle of lunch when she hears Max’s key in the lock. Anna rushes to the bedroom, quickly unwinding the scarf from her neck, putting it sloppily back into its box and shoving it under the bed until it can’t be seen from the doorway.

            “You home, darling?” calls Max.

            “Yes,” she says, and makes her way back to greet him, settling into his warm embrace with a sigh. “Good trip?”

            “Long. Meetings were a disaster to sit through.” He kisses the top of her head. “You’ve cleaned house.”

            “You know how Saturdays are,” Anna says, and Max hums. He kisses her again and then disappears into the bedroom. Anna goes back to her lunch, serenaded by the shower starting and the _click-clack_ of bottles opening and closing. If she closes her eyes, transports herself back a handful of hours, it’s Oksana, and she’ll come out in a sweater and jeans and bare feet and kiss Anna hello when she comes into the kitchen.

 

—

“Here, come help me with this,” Max says.

            Anna emerges from the master bedroom in skirt and tights but no top, still trying to find a suitable one. “What?”

            “This guy wrote his statement in French and attempted to translate it to Russian but in poor taste.” He holds the paper out to Anna. “I’m sure you’ll do better.”

            “We’ll be late for the service,” Anna says, but takes the paper anyway.

            “Not like God will strike us with lightning for being ten minutes late, darling.”

            She makes quick work of it, noting that the man had fumbled with his verbs and tense. “Obviously a newer speaker,” she says, giving the paper back. “Let’s deal with it later.”

 

            The cathedral is cold despite the cooling weather outside, and even sandwiched between Max and another man tightly enough that Anna can feel the heat radiating from them, she’s still chilled. She wraps her jacket tighter around herself and stuffs her hands into the undersides of her arms. In a place like this, Oksana wouldn’t dare take her hands, but she would, if they were elsewhere. “Your hands are cold,” she’d say, and she’d hold them, lean to them and exhale her warm breath upon Anna’s skin. Anna takes a breath, forces her chin up so that she’s looking at the choir up front, the pastor in his black garb, half-hidden by other shoulders. Such thoughts, she tells herself, are not appropriate for this setting. You must devote this time to God, to Him only. Yet the psalms make her mind float, transport her to Friday, to the kisses, the wine—

            “Please, be seated,” the pastor announces. The choir part ways and take their exits on either side, settling into their places in the pews with the audience. Every footstep and creak reverberates. Anna sinks into the bench with a small, grateful sigh, no longer worried that her vision will suddenly swim with black.

            “All right?” Max whispers. “You look a bit peaky.”

            Anna nods. His hand is on her knee, waiting almost expectantly for her own. She only squeezes his fingers, and tucks her hand into her jacket pocket.

            The pastor’s message is that of the Garden of Eden and how such a well-known story can be paralleled with their own lives. He says, rather solemnly, “We’re walking in this garden every day. The world’s marvels are brought before us so that we may appreciate them, take care of them, build upon them, and yet there is temptation in these marvels.” A pause, and he gives his audience a long look. His eyes, though blurry from this distance, seem to fall directly on Anna, and she gulps. He continues, “These temptations may come in the form of places, or activities, or even people, but if you trust in God—”

            I do, Anna thinks, turning her head down, her lungs collapsing. I do, I do, and yet this one pulls me in, _she_ pulls me in! Anna has already said yes, already kissed this temptation and lain with her. She trusted in God and has done this heinous thing anyway. Her hand tightens into a fist and her free one is already plunging into the other pocket, feeling the smooth packet surrounding her cigarettes. Never before has she left in the middle of a service but there are first times for everything. Her vision is tunneled; she doesn’t see what Max is doing or if he follows her with his eyes; she doesn’t hear the pastor or the hushed comments from other audience members. It’s Oksana she hears, her whispered obscenities, the soft, pleasured sounds from when Anna’s thighs had framed her face.

            Anna shuts herself into the Volkswagen, breathing heavily, fingers shaking as she takes a cigarette and lights it. Oksana would steady her hand, or light it for her, and watch as she sucked on the filter. The effects of the nicotine are immediate, and she feels herself relaxing, but not enough. The filter isn’t Oksana’s lips. And the nails scratching her inner thigh—when had it gotten there?—aren’t Oksana’s nails. The cigarette isn’t enough, nor is even breathing. She reaches for her phone, unlocks it, and hovers over Oksana’s contact. What would she say, if Anna called now? Would she be roused from sleep? Would she meet Anna somewhere, since she’s already desperate enough?

            She nearly presses call.

            “God _dammit_ ,” Anna hisses, and shoves her phone back into her purse.

 

—

With her face hidden behind her computer screen, her morning class can’t tell that she isn’t grading. The pen’s in her hand, hovering above the advanced class’ latest writing assignment, but it doesn’t move except for the occasional twitch of muscle. Her mind is out the window, back in her bed, where she’s kissing Oksana, lying underneath her, their bare skin bathed gold with the morning’s light. Oksana’s hands trap Anna’s wrists and, panting, she asks, “Were you thinking about me?”

            “Yes,” Anna replies. There’s soft fabric brushing her skin when Oksana lets go of her wrists.

            “Tell me.”

            “Your eyes, your skin, your mouth… I want…” She can’t say it.

            “What, Anna?” Oksana murmurs, kissing her. “Say it.” The fabric encircles her wrists and Anna realizes it’s the scarf Oksana had given her, tying her hands to the headboard. “You want my mouth on you, don’t you? Say it.”

            “Yes,” she whispers.

            Oksana hums, kisses her gently, tightens the scarf a little more. “Will you beg for it?”

            “Please, darling…”

            “Do you want me to help myself?”

            The school bell rings before the imagined version can reply, jarring her into reality. Quickly, Anna says, “Don’t forget about page 203; that translation is due when I see you on Wednesday.” She smiles at the students who tell her goodbye, and when her classroom is empty and silent, she leans heavily back against her chair, stretching out her left hand, which had, apparently, been squeezing her knee. She lets it rest on her thigh before she starts tracing lines with her fingernails. Would Oksana leave her like that, strung-out and desperate? Tease her to the point of pain? _Tie her up?_ The thought sends a sharp bolt straight between her legs and she makes a soft sound of want. It takes immense self-discipline not to go straight to the staff bathroom, where she’d either splash her face with its icy water or give in to the desire to touch herself after locking herself in a stall and God she feels like a schoolgirl, reduced to such raw nerves and reckless thoughts. There’s still a minute before her second batch of morning students crosses her door, and so Anna allows her hand to press between her thighs, applying pressure with her palm once, twice, shuddering, wishing so badly to slip fingers inside, thrice, and then forces herself to pull away and take out lesson plans.

            The want, the uncomfortable slickness, has built up all morning that by the time she meets Oksana’s eyes when the girl walks in, she nearly combusts. She knows her face must be red, because Oksana gives her a knowing look as she passes Anna’s desk and sits at her own. Anna manages a “ _Bonjour_ , Oksana,” and can’t say anything else.

            The classroom quickly fills up, and once everyone has settled and attendance has been taken, Anna passes out graded work and the writing assignment. One of Oksana’s fingers brushes hers when Oksana takes a copy; Anna has to steady her voice when she explains the assignment. “This is about the reading you had to do over the weekend. There are three questions, as you can see, but only choose one to answer. You may consult your books.”

            Pens and pencils scratch and pages flip, adding to Anna’s circuit around the room. She observes, perhaps stares at Oksana for three seconds too long; in her mind, as she passes Oksana’s desk, she tucks a strand of dark hair behind Oksana’s ear, a kiss hello. In reality, she only glances at Oksana’s work when she passes by.

            The assignment takes half an hour. After they’ve all been handed in, Anna starts on today’s lecture, her eyes always glancing at Oksana last.

            By lunch, she’s sorting through the writing assignments. Oksana had turned in two pieces of paper; one is the assignment, the other is a short note.

_Come to the courtyard today; I’ve missed your company._

_Oksana_

            In need of a smoke break anyway, Anna sets aside the papers, shrugs on her jacket, and makes sure her cigarettes are in her pocket.

            Oksana is waiting on their bench, buried in a book, but she looks up when she sees Anna and her face visibly brightens. Anna sits slowly, the earlier want returning with a vengeance. She feels like Tantalus, her desires ever out of reach despite being so close. She shakes a cigarette free and allows Oksana to light it for her, the touch lingering, feeling like a kiss. Anna wishes it was, but to kiss Oksana here would be to ask for the guillotine. The tan filter will have to suffice, as will the meaningful way Oksana watches her suck it.

            “Should I ask about your weekend?” Oksana says.

            Anna admits softly, “I spent all of it thinking about you.” She takes a drag, blows the smoke, takes another. “I… I want you so terribly.”

            “You want me now?”

            “Yes.” Her face is hot. If other students were to look over, they’d assume it was from the colder air.

            Oksana is silent for a moment, teeth worrying at her lip. Then she gets up from the bench, says, “I’ll see you after school.”

            Anna stares at her receding figure, admiring the play of light on her dark hair, the way her hips sway with each confident stride back to the double doors. Even with the cigarette, her chest feels tight, clouded with both desire and guilt. She doesn’t remember feeling so crazed when she was falling for Max.

 

            Anna’s nerves are frayed rope and her muscles are coiled tight, like springs. She’s been grading papers since school ended, waiting impatiently for Oksana, the light slipping by slowly and time even slower. Out in the hall, there are the occasional footsteps from another teacher leaving, a door closing, a conversation between two female teachers floating loudly by her door and fading as they walk down the corridor and turn to the stairs. Then it’s silent again for long minutes. Anna scribbles notes on the bottom of a writing assignment, keeping her pen as steady as possible. It’s after four; usually Oksana is earlier than this. They would be in Anna’s car by now, going to her apartment for a lesson if they’d planned on it, and then… it wouldn’t be a lesson for long, would it?

            Footsteps sound in the hallway, getting closer; Anna’s heart leaps with her stomach, and relief floods her when her door softly opens and closes. She finishes her note and caps her pen, turning in her desk chair to face Oksana, who looks calm, but there’s something dark about her eyes. Eagerness? Desire?

            Anna says, “Max is home.” Why it’s the first thing she says instead of hello, she doesn’t know.

“We’ll do it here, then,” Oksana says. The sun is lower now, the afternoon’s light bleeding through Anna’s windows, and the hallways are quiet but that doesn’t mean everyone has left.

          “We shouldn’t,” Anna says, appalled, but Max is home, like she’d said, and Oksana lives someplace else, somewhere Anna doesn’t know. She gets up from her chair and makes to leave but, with an air of finality, locks the door. She returns to her desk and reaches for Oksana’s hand, who tugs her forward and kisses her. The room feels warmer now and the sun is on her desk—Anna’s favorite time of the afternoon, when she’s here grading papers—and now there will be some new meaning attached to this. The kisses are quick, the foreplay even quicker, and soon she’s propelled onto the side of her desk that is bare of papers, her legs on either side of Oksana and Oksana framed between them, pulling her skirt to her knees and sliding her hand into Anna’s underwear. She gasps, loudly, and Oksana says, “You’ll get us caught, making noise like that.” Fingers stroke slowly, touch feather-light. “Is that what you want?”

          Anna shakes her head. “No,” she whispers, breathing unsteadily. “Do something. Please, do something, I can’t—” She gets cut off by fingers sliding inside and she tampers the moan that wants to escape and instead it comes out as a drawn-out whimper. She wraps her arms around Oksana’s shoulders, steadying herself but pulling Oksana close, and Oksana’s mouth peppers her neck with kisses, nibbles the delicate skin but not enough to hurt. Her hair is in Anna’s face and her world is both dark and golden. Oksana presses harder and Anna bites her lip, gasping quietly, throat constricting in frustration that she can’t tell Oksana how pleasurable this really is. “Yes darling,” she whispers. “Please…”

          “Be quiet,” Oksana murmurs, “or I’ll stop.”

          “Don’t, oh god don’t…” She leans her forehead against Oksana’s shoulder and her body curls and she wants so badly to shout but she can only gasp, let Oksana work her through it until Anna has to reach down and take her hand away. She kisses her languidly, cupping Oksana’s face in her hands, sighing into it, at how warm Oksana’s mouth is, how wet. Oksana starts to pull away but Anna pulls her back, breathes, “Your mouth, Oksana— I want your mouth…”

Oksana groans, and then she kneels.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think the gist of this fic could now be as follows: plot, angst, banging, back to plot. Oh well


	11. The Honor Society

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been a month. I'm so sorry. But this chapter is almost 8k words long, so it does make sense, doesn't it? I'd like to thank Dani/viagiordano for going over this chapter with her fine-toothed comb despite being up to her neck in midterms; you are a champ, deer, I appreciate it so much. And thank you all for your patience with this beast!  
> \--  
> The end scene has been put below a horizontal line because it's quite explicit and intense. I'm going to hell for writing it and y'all are going to hell for reading it; let's start a book club or something down there, shall we?

November has rolled around and the weather is already significantly colder. It’s present in the afternoons when she and Oksana talk in the courtyard, or when, after lessons, Anna leaves her bedroom window cracked to let the air chill their overheated skin. This thing between them, the sex, is a regular ritual, and in the moments that Max is gone and Oksana takes his place, Anna hardly thinks of him at all. She feels guilt for it, certainly, but it’s always muted, a pianissimo compared to the forte of her other emotions.

            With the colder weather comes a change in mood among her students. The holidays are approaching and there’s a bored eagerness about them: tired of the school routine, eager to be on a break, to enjoy the holidays and everything that comes with them. She feels this with Oksana too, but there is no excitement about her that the other students have. They have families to go home to; Oksana doesn’t.

            The other thing with November’s arrival is the Honor Society. The school has them with every language that is taught, and Anna knows the head of the French Honor Society. Katrina Petrov had been a friend at university, though she hadn’t intended to go into teaching at all. She’d been a fine art major, of all things, but had a love of French too, and so they had their French classes together, and Katrina was often seen painting scenes of France, which she showed to Anna with eagerness.

            “Don’t be a critic,” she often said when unveiling her work, “but tell me what you think.”

            They were beautiful paintings. Her medium of choice was oil, but she painted with acrylic or watercolor when she wanted a certain vibe. Anna had loved her work, and told Katrina as such. One day, after revealing a painting of the countryside, Anna had said, “If I were a rich woman I would pay you thousands for your art.”

            “Is it really worth that much?” Katrina asked, in disbelief.

            “Yes. Can’t you see how professional it looks?”

            They had gone their separate ways after graduating and ran into each other when Anna began teaching. She wasn’t head of the French Honor Society back then, just the assistant, but then when the old head retired, Katrina was the first choice to replace her.

            As far as Anna knows, Katrina still paints from time to time, though her life is dominated by the French Honor Society and all its administrative duties.

            It’s a Tuesday and cold and somehow the school feels colder than outside. The heaters haven’t kicked in yet and students and teachers alike are still bundled in their coats. Anna glimpses them through classroom windows and office windows as she makes her way to the teachers’ lounge on the first floor. Her chest is tight, her mind busy reminding her that the lounge is the first place she’d gone the morning after sleeping with Oksana for the first time. I’m not here for coffee purposes, Anna tells herself. There’s a meeting. The French Honor Society will be discussing events and sign-ups and who they want to let in. She’ll tell them she wants two students from her advanced class, and two from her intermediate, one being Oksana.

            She spots Katrina first, in the conference room, and she smiles when she enters, smiles even wider when Katrina steps to her excitedly and takes her hand. They’ve spoken shortly within the last year but the last time they’d had a decent, long talk was about a year and a half ago, well before Oksana came into Anna’s life.

            “It feels like forever, doesn’t it?” Katrina says, her warm hand squeezing Anna’s.

            “It’s good to see your happy face,” Anna tells her.

            There isn’t much time for pleasantries; other members of the society are floating in, cups of coffee in their hands, looking tired. Anna takes her place beside Katrina, who has a large binder in front of her. Other teachers have notepads with them.

            The meeting begins with greetings and a chatter of stories and laughter, and then it turns to a more serious note. Each member of the society gives a statement about last year’s events, what they liked, what they felt could be improved upon, and then they draw up a list of the students they wish to include. Come Anna’s turn, she tells Katrina and the other members that she particularly liked the holiday gathering from two years ago. “It’s a chance for them to do things outside school,” she says. “See each other, have a good time.” There are hums of agreement throughout the room.

            Katrina says, “I was meditating on that too, actually. We didn’t have one last year, seeing as there wasn’t much of a budget for it.”

            Another teacher asks, “We have it for this year, then?”

            “We do. Perhaps we can arrange something.” She turns back to Anna. “Who are you considering to be part of the society this year?”

            “Petr, whom you all know,” replies Anna, “Larisa Abdulov, and Oksana Astankova, both of whom are in my intermediate class.”

            “Oksana?” asks one teacher.

            “Really?” says another.

            Anna’s hand tightens on the table. “I assure you, she’s brilliant. And wasn’t it the mission statement at the start of this society to give students an opportunity?” There are nods, even reluctant ones. Damn, these people. “Those are my only three.”

            Katrina’s gaze is almost soft. She says, “I’m sure there will be room for all of them.”

            The rest of the teachers give their lists; Katrina writes the names dutifully. She sets her pen aside and flips to a new section of her binder. “Now,” she says, “let’s talk about venues for this holiday thing.”

 

            “I’m sorry you had to hear all that.”

            It’s after school and Anna lingers with Katrina underneath the covered double doors at the front entrance. Rain is pouring from the sky and leaking from the roof, splashing loudly nearby. It’s already cold; by tonight this may well freeze over and turn into the first snowflakes of the season.

            “It sets my teeth on edge,” Anna says. “They can’t see past her history.”

            “They’re not in class with her either, nor are they her teacher,” Katrina says. “You’re the one who sees all her work, but that’s going to change soon.”

            “Let’s hope it changes their minds.” Out of the corner of her eye, Anna catches a glimpse of Oksana hovering underneath a tree. They’d planned, before lunch, a lesson for today, and Anna already feels stirrings of anxiousness. She sets a hand on Katrina’s shoulder, tells her, “It was good to see you. I have to take off.”

            “Papers to grade?” Katrina touches her wrist; her fingers are warm and still have those painter’s callouses on them.

            “Something like that.”

            “We’ll have to do dinner sometime before the holidays.”

            Anna agrees, and Katrina disappears back inside the warmer school. Like all wishes, that one may not come true. The nature of adult life was a sad one.

            “Who was that?” Oksana asks. They’re walking to the staff lot now, underneath Oksana’s umbrella.

            “The head of the French Honor Society. Her name’s Katrina.”

            “You have a history with her.”

            She’s referring to the touches, the hand on Katrina’s shoulder. Anna says, “It’s not that… sort of history. We went to university together.” She unlocks her car; Oksana holds the door open for her and quickly goes around to the passenger side. They sit together while the car warms up, not daring to kiss even though with the rain-streaked windows and the distance people wouldn’t be able to tell. Anna does, however, let Oksana hold her hand. They stay connected for the entire ride to the apartment.

 

            There’s about an hour before Max gets home. Oksana will have to leave in half an hour if she doesn’t want to get caught. The thought is depressing. Anna wishes she could stay, that they could lay in bed forever trapped in this tranquil moment. The rain is static and soft taps against the windows; Anna sees it reflected in the mirror on her desk, as well as their own reflections. She watches, oddly transfixed, until she has to turn away to stub out her cigarette. Oksana kisses her when she turns back, then moves lower, takes an already sensitive nipple into her mouth but it’s gentle, unlike earlier. Anna sighs, presses up into the ministrations, wanting more even though she’s exhausted. Eventually Oksana moves between her thighs and kisses her there, sucks gently.

            “Oksana,” Anna whispers, reaching down to her, burying a hand in her silky hair. It’s slow this time, drawn out, and the orgasm feels like a sigh. She curls, gasping softly, Oksana’s pleasured sounds reaching her ears. Fingers slip inside and Anna moans, murmurs, “I wish you could stay longer.”

            “Someday,” Oksana says, voice gentle. One hand settles on Anna’s hip while the other starts a languid rhythm. “Look at me.”

 

—

She wraps her arms around Max from behind, leaning her cheek between his smooth, bare shoulder blades. He’s at the sink shaving, dressed only in boxers. He smells like soap, and his hair is wet.

            “Good morning,” he says, fondly, a hand finding hers. “Something wrong?”

            “No,” replies Anna, tightening her hold on him. She’d woken up to the sounds of the shower and was overcome with a sudden urge to hold him. She lets her hand settle over his heart, feeling its beat, how strong and steady it is. Eventually his razor clatters against the sink and he turns around in her arms.

            “You’re thinking of something,” he murmurs, cupping her face.

            “I…” She swallows. Her chest feels funny and his eyes are so soft, filled with mild concern. Anna asks, “Can you come home early today?”

            He smiles then, amused. “You’ll keep me from an important Saturday meeting.”

            “You’ve always hated those things.” She kisses him softly; it feels funny to kiss him when he’s clean-shaven for the first time in months. “We’ll go out somewhere.”

            “Do I get to pick?”

            “Yes.” Another kiss. “Think on it while you sit through that boring meeting.” The next kiss goes on for minutes, turning into the gentle, clumsy, turned-on kind. He pulls away when it becomes too much. She feels him against her leg.

            “I should get ready,” he says, breathing slightly elevated, cheeks a shade of pink that makes Anna’s chest pulsate painfully. He gives her one last kiss, on the forehead, and leaves her in the bathroom to dress.

 

            They end up in downtown Moscow, at a more expensive restaurant. The inside is warm and intimate, much better than outside, which is already cold and only getting colder the lower the sun gets in the sky. Anna holds Max’s hand while they wait to put their name in and she realizes she feels happy, and that this reminds her of when she and Max first met. He had a love language that was different from the previous boyfriends’; for a while Anna had thought he was taking her out to dinner and to shows because he felt that was what one was supposed to do, but then she realized that was how he expressed his love for her, spending his money on her—within reason. They’re married now, and he still does it, and as she studies him in the blue and gold light she thinks she’s never loved him more.

            And yet there is Oksana, the shadow of her rising within Anna’s mind as suddenly as the girl herself had appeared in Anna’s life. Her feelings for Max are light and rooted; the ones for Oksana are darker, but no less real. She knows it isn’t love; if it was it would consume her entirely, but it’s something. Yearning, Anna thinks now, walking beside Max as they make their way to their table. Yearning, longing, desire, for their connection and collisions in bed, longing to see her, to touch her, to kiss and be kissed by her, those kisses that are otherworldly, unlike anything Anna has ever known.

            It isn’t love. It isn’t. And yet…

            She brings herself back to the present, forces her mind to live in this moment, where Max pulls out her chair for her while talking to their waitress about expensive wines.

            “The special is a red wine,” the waitress says, “imported all the way from France.”

            “You do like the French ones,” Max says, and tells the waitress they’ll have glasses of that with bread.

            “Max, you’ll drain us dry,” Anna says, smiling at him in both awe and disbelief. He doesn’t have to do this at all. And has she, in such a short amount of time, forgotten how sweet he is, how lucky she is to be loved so much?

            “I’d rather be poor with you than be well-off alone.” He means it, even if there’s a joke in his voice.

            Anna gives him a soft but playful kick to the shin. “Charmer,” she says, smiling widely at him.

            As dinner goes from appetizer to main course, they talk about a mix of serious and silly things, ranging from work-related to holiday-related, since Christmas is less than a month away. Anna admits it feels a lot like catching up.

            “Have you gotten anything from your mother?” Max asks.

            “No.” Anna spreads her napkin over her lap. “She forgot to send me a list last year and then called on Christmas Day wondering why I hadn’t got her anything.”

            Max chuckles. “It’s a wonder she didn’t jump through the receiver.”

            They get pastries and sorbet for dessert, and around her spoon, Anna says, “There was an honor society meeting on Tuesday.”

            “Get anything done?”

            “Yes, surprisingly.” She takes two more bites, liking the rich vanilla and how well it dances with the raspberry. “I told them I wanted Oksana to join.”

            “What did they say?” There isn’t a hint of jealousy in his voice but Anna thinks she sees it in his eyes.

            “They were reluctant,” Anna admits. She twirls her spoon in her sorbet. “Because of her history. Katrina said there would be room for her and I said that once they saw her work they would think differently about letting her join.”

            Max nods. “How’s Katrina?”

            “Good. It was good to see her.”

            “You saw her a few weeks ago, didn’t you?”

            The opera, Anna remembers. She’d told Max she was going with Katrina. She says, “It was a month ago. I guess it’s felt longer.”

            Dessert continues in silence and for a moment Anna regrets bringing up Oksana. She hasn’t mentioned her to Max in weeks but still it’s like he can sense Anna’s fondness of her.

            She continues, “We talked about a holiday party, since there’s a budget for it this year.”

            Max is a little more relaxed now. He swirls the last bit of wine in his glass. “That’ll be good for everyone, I think. Holiday parties are enjoyable until something goes amiss.”

            “Oh, that was once,” Anna says. He’s referring to two years ago when the tablecloth on the rewards table caught fire and nearly burned certificates.

            “Have you made a ‘no candles’ rule yet?” he jokes, and Anna laughs.

 

            Back home, they warm up by making love, and afterwards, when Max has fallen asleep without bothering to dress, Anna showers. Everything about tonight had been wonderful, the dinner, the soft sex, and she feels mostly content. She’s still in love with her husband even after sleeping with someone else; she still wants him even though she wants someone else too.

            In this private moment, she allows herself to drift to Oksana. Where is she? What is she doing? Does she also think of Anna when out with other people?

            Anna closes her eyes and lets the hot water fall over her, wrapping her arms around herself, sighing. Perhaps Oksana would do this, if Anna allowed her to step into the shower with her. Oksana would hold her as she’d held Max, cup her hips, or her breasts, kiss Anna’s neck so softly it’ll feel as if she’s being kissed by a feather. Anna’s lips begin to tingle just as warmth blooms between her thighs. She brings a hand to her mouth and kisses the back of it, imagining Oksana’s lips in its place, hoping she’ll feel the kiss, wherever she is. Hoping she’s warm, and safe.

            The thought lingers for too long. Anna’s chest pulsates as it did at dinner but with darker feelings. She turns out the path of the water and wraps herself in a towel and, dripping across the floor, tiptoes into the bedroom and fetches her phone from the nightstand. She sinks to the bathroom floor once the door is closed again, her thumb hovering over Oksana’s contact. The night is still young enough; surely Oksana is still awake. Anna squeezes her eyes shut and presses _call_.

            “Don’t pick up, don’t pick up,” she whispers. It rings forever and she’s certain it’s gone to voicemail and then, _“You’ve never called on a weekend before.”_

Something warm floods her body at hearing Oksana’s voice, and she breathes a shaky sigh. “I just,” she begins softly, unsure of how to put this strange desire. “I wanted to hear your voice.” She hates how whispery she sounds, how breathless, and the silence from Oksana’s end makes her nervousness worse.

            _“Are you masturbating?”_

Her face turns into a hot coal. “No,” she says quickly.

            _“Why else would you want to hear my voice?”_

“Sometimes it’s possible to miss a voice.”

            _“You’re speaking so quietly,”_ Oksana says. _“Is your husband nearby?”_

“He’s… sleeping.”

            Silence, save for breathing. Then Oksana asks quietly, _“What are you doing, Anna?”_

Anna leans her head against the wall. “I don’t know.”

            Another pause. _“Will I see you Monday?”_

“Yes,” Anna says. “Yes, you will.” Her free hand has found her thigh and her nails scrape over it and it feels almost like Oksana’s teeth. It’s possible to miss Oksana’s voice and her mouth and her hands.

            Oksana says nothing for a long time. Then, _“_ _Fais de beaux rêves,”_ and then she hangs up.

             Outside the door, Max’s soft snores reach her ears. Her lungs and heart are playing cards that someone squeezes in their hands before shuffling. She loves him. God, does she ever. The warmth she feels at the sounds of his dreams is proof of it. The apartment creaks with settlement, catching up to Anna’s own, but a pipe groans a moment later, like Anna’s troubled soul. There are plenty of people who fall in love with more than one person, are capable of feeling that love for more than one person, or want. They go back home to that person at the end of the day. They choose that person while wanting another. Isn’t that all this is? Isn’t this normal?

 

—

“You must’ve missed me if you called on a Saturday.”

            They’re in the courtyard at lunch, sitting closer together because of the cold, their hands barely touching between them. Anna’s cigarette is almost down to the filter, barely smoked. She doesn’t know how to word the storm of feelings she’d felt that night except, “I was in a strange mood.”

            “Were you thinking of me?”

            Anna puts the cigarette between her lips, takes a deep drag. “I think of you so much it’s obvious to God.” Obvious to Him, invisible to everyone else save Oksana.

            “Oh,” says Oksana, “there’s a poet in you after all.”

            “The French literature I read in university came rushing back.”

            “Is that what being around me does?”

            Anna sighs, “Being around you does lots of things.”

            Across the yard are the hackey-sack boys, playing around with it in a lively matter. They’re one of the only larger groups outside; in the colder months, students congregate in the cozy corners of the school, not daring to go outside unless they had to. The cold is eating Anna’s face and hands but she doesn’t want to go inside just yet.

            “You should read me something,” Oksana says after a moment.

            Anna grinds her cigarette out on the bench. “Do you prefer literature or poetry?”

            “Whatever you’d like.”

            She thinks. There’s _Les Misérables,_ the damn brick, but that’ll take ages. Then there are the skinny books of poetry by various French authors, and a fat anthology of French literature and poetry. Oksana might like something from one of those. Anna says, “We’ll have a lesson with one today. See how much you’ve improved.” Which, according to the body of work Anna had shown the honor society early that morning, was a lot. It was impressive, and everyone had taken notice, even the teachers who’d reluctantly nodded last week.

            When class starts up again and Oksana has gone elsewhere, Anna thinks Oksana will be able to understand whatever is read to her.  

           

            Oksana’s hands are on her hips, propelling Anna backwards, a sort of clumsy, stumbling waltz that ends with Anna falling into the cactus chair and Oksana on her knees, between Anna’s parted ones, their lips parting and meeting quickly, passionately. The chair is warm from the late afternoon sun, already sinking, casting heavy shadows around the room, and on Oksana’s face. Anna pulls her closer and works on the buttons of Oksana’s shirt; Oksana allows her to unbutton it halfway before she says, “That’s far enough.”

            Anna sets her hands on the curves of Oksana’s shoulders, admiring the soft, warm skin, the glimpse of breasts just visible above the parted V of her shirt. The sight sends a jolt into Anna’s gut, makes the beat between her thighs pulsate demandingly. Oksana’s lips press against her throat while her hands tug Anna’s skirt and stockings completely off, and then fingers trace her over her underwear. Anna moans, lets her head flop back against the chair, her breathing elevated. Her fingers find the hair at the base of Oksana’s skull and grab on, stay there even when Oksana moves down to kiss her thighs.

            “Put your feet up,” Oksana murmurs, biting an inner thigh in reward.

            Anna gasps. It hurt beautifully. Her bare feet slip against the chair’s cushion and so she readjusts, watches Oksana kiss up her other thigh, bite that one too. She moans, Oksana makes a small but pleasured sound in return. She kisses higher, and higher still, and kisses Anna over her underwear.

            “Oksana,” Anna whispers, hips twitching, the movement of Oksana’s mouth sending a sharp but pleasant stab into her stomach. She’s certain Oksana can feel her want, smell it, even; her fingers would slide so easily in… Teeth graze her, that swollen, sensitive part of her and she shudders, presses Oksana harder against her, breathes, “Please.” Sweat makes her shirt stick uncomfortably to her skin and she wishes Oksana had taken it off but it’s too late now; Anna would die if her hands were anywhere else, if she took her mouth away from her. Oksana repeats the action and she whimpers, pathetically, her free hand gripping the chair’s arm for dear life; she feels close, already, and barely anything has been done. She’s almost gasping, her hips moving, wanting more. “Oksana, please… take them off, just… do something…”

            Oksana pulls away, replacing her mouth with her hand, palm pressing against her and rubbing and Anna sighs. Oksana kisses her, slips tongue into it and it’s unbearably erotic; Anna shudders, moans.

            “Darling,” she gasps, and then her body jerks forward as climax hits, a small one, completely unexpected. She’s in the middle of riding it out when she vaguely feels her underwear being pulled down and feels fingers slip inside her. “Oh, _god_ …”

            Oksana moans softly, right into Anna’s ear. “Don’t hold back,” she says, breathing unsteadily. “I want to hear you, Anna. I need to hear you.” She curls her fingers, moves them to the right, and Anna whimpers loudly.

            “Oh god, darling, there…”

            Oksana curses and picks up the pace. It’s desperate now, all the want from earlier spilling into each breath, every pleasured sound, every thrust of Oksana’s fingers.

            “Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop…” Her body is curling and her throat is tight and god she’s close to tears. “ _Please_ …”

            “Fuck, Anna,” Oksana groans, and it sends Anna reeling, coming with a cry. The ocean’s in her ears as she’s coming down and she barely feels Oksana slipping out of her, barely hears a zipper but hears Oksana gasping. There’s a sharp intake of breath followed by several short ones, and then a long sigh before lips gently kiss Anna’s neck.

            Anna wraps her arms around Oksana’s shoulders, holds her while they breathe together. The room is blue, the sun having disappeared behind the horizon minutes ago. Above them, the sound of a door opening, heavy footsteps. Eventually Oksana pulls away, her fingers tracing Anna’s lips. Anna kisses them, and it’s only when one slides gently between her teeth that she tastes salt, not her own. She stills for a second, shocked, and shocked further when she takes Oksana’s hand in her own and kisses the slick from her fingers.

            Oksana stares at her for long minutes after she’s pulled her hand away, a strange look on her face, and then she asks, “Wine?”

“Yes please,” Anna says around a sigh. She fixes her clothes as best she can and reaches for a cigarette and lighter, wanting to hide the lingering taste on her tongue.

            Oksana comes back with the wine and sits on the loveseat a few feet away. Her hair is slightly disheveled and she’d buttoned her shirt again. For a while there is silence, and studying, and then Anna says, “There’s something I have to tell you.” Oksana is alert, her face neutral but eyes bright. “You’re aware the school has a French Honor Society, yes?”

            “Of course.”

            “I’ve asked if you could join. I’m sorry to bring it up so late,” Anna adds, “but there is approval across the board.”

            Oksana is silent, staring at the blood-red wine in her glass. Then, “Why do you want me in there?”

            “You’re gifted, Oksana. You deserve an opportunity to succeed.”

            “It’s pretentious.”

            “You would be among students with your skill level,” Anna tells her. “You’d get to practice more than you already do, meet new people.” When Oksana says nothing, Anna continues, “There’s a holiday party in three weeks. There’ll be food and music and awards.” She leans forward a little, trying to meet Oksana’s eyes. “You deserve to be there as much as anyone else. It’ll be a good time.”

            At last, Oksana nods, though Anna doesn’t know whether it’s in acknowledgement or agreement. Oksana downs a good sip of wine and sets the glass aside on the coffee table, getting up to browse the bookshelves filled with Anna’s French books and other books by both English and American authors. She hopes Oksana will at least say yes to the holiday party; it would be a pity to go alone.

            Oksana’s studying the books carefully, her fingers running over the spines. She slides a skinny book from its place on the shelf, Jean Cocteau’s _Les Enfants Terribles_ —The Holy Terrors. “This one,” she says, and carefully hands it to Anna.

            “This is so strange,” Anna says, to both the book and the idea of doing this. “Are you sure you want me to read to you?”

            “Yes,” replies Oksana, settling back on the loveseat. “You have a nice voice.” She props her feet up on the armrest and folds her arms behind her head, her attentiveness like it is in class but more relaxed.

            Anna thumbs through the book, reacquainting herself with its black cover, its thicker pages that still smell like vinegar—though now with hints of dust—and its artwork, drawn by the author himself. She doesn’t know what prompted this desire in Oksana, but she finds it endearing. She flicks on a lamp, says, “We only have time for a little bit. Just an hour.” A nod, and she begins: “ _Les Enfants Terribles_. Part one.

> _“That portion of old Paris known as the Cité Monthiers is bounded on the one side by the rue de Clichy, on the other side by the rue d’Amsterdam. Should you choose to approach it from the rue de Clichy, you would come to a pair of wrought iron gates: but if you were to come by way of the rue d’Amsterdam, you would reach another entrance, open day and night….”_ 1

           

—

Come the night of the holiday party, Anna waits for Oksana in her car, which is already on and warm. She hates to be late to these kinds of things, hence being in the car, so that they can take off as soon as Oksana is buckled in. She’s nervous, if she’s being honest with herself. She’s never been to a school-related holiday party with a student she has strong feelings towards. And she doesn’t know what’ll happen. Everything seems suddenly so uncertain, and it’s not as if her entire life has been predictable, it’s just… something about the way it is now makes her feel both grounded and incredibly lost. She turns the volume down on her Debussy CD just as there’s a knock on her passenger door.

            “I can’t believe you didn’t let me pick you up,” Anna says when the door’s open. Oksana slides easily in, shuts the door, and buckles her seatbelt. Walking the few blocks from the nearest bus stop in this cold weather is mad.

            “I live in a shithole,” Oksana murmurs, sticking her hands in front of the vent blowing warm air. It’s the first thing Anna has heard about Oksana’s home. It may very well be the last, and so she doesn’t pry.

            “We’ll only stay for a little while,” Anna says, pulling away from the curb. “Just until the awards.” Piano floats from the car’s speakers at a soft volume and the city lights shine their colors into the dark interior of the car, highlighting Oksana, dressed in dark jeans and a nicer shirt, a dark coat over it all, hair out of her face for once.

            Katrina had rented out a meeting room at one of Moscow’s nicer hotels and there was the promise of food and drink. Oksana had agreed, somewhat reluctantly, to come along, but even so, Anna is glad for the company. She’s thinking about what could happen when she feels Oksana’s fingers brushing against her own. They’re stopped at a light and so it’s safe to look to the passenger seat, stare at Oksana’s dark eyes. Anna knows that look now; Oksana isn’t thinking of the social gathering at all. Something begins to stir in her gut, and Anna says, “Don’t be silly; we can’t go back now.”

            “If anyone asks,” Oksana says, “I’m only there for the food and because you forced me.”

            Yet when they arrive, Oksana is polite but distant, shaking hands when introduced to Anna’s other colleagues and a handful of her advanced students, answering their questions with short, intelligent phrases. French music plays from speakers somewhere, a mix of old and new, and the food table is laden with traditional French food on one side and Russian on the other. In the middle are bowls filled with punch and other drinks and beside them are glasses.

            “There are other drinks,” says Katrina, steering Anna away from the food table and to another in a darker corner. “These are for the adults.” There are several bottles of vodka, quite a few bottles of French wines, ranging from reds to whites to rosés to chardonnay, and champagne.

            “Can’t let the students have all the fun, can we?” Anna says. “Shall I get you one?”

            “Champagne, if you don’t mind.”

            Anna pours the drinks, champagne for Katrina, a bit of vodka for herself.

            “Oksana seems lovely,” Katrina says, accepting her glass.

            Anna looks across the room, where Oksana is talking to Petr, from Anna’s advanced class. To others she would seem quite invested in what he was saying, but Anna knows it’s a mask; she would probably rather be at Anna’s apartment, helping herself to cake, or to Anna herself. The meeting room’s lights make her hair look darker and cast shadows on her features, a chiaroscuro come to life. Anna stares for only a few seconds. “She is,” she says, and takes a small, stinging sip of vodka. “She’s a character.”

            “I heard she caused trouble.”

            “She’s a bit past that now, I think.”

            “Made any friends?”

            “One,” Anna replies, though she doubts Augustine is a friend. She hasn’t seen them together in weeks, nor heard Oksana mention her.

            “You look proud of her,” Katrina says, and there’s a smile in her voice.

            Anna nods. “Very proud.”

            Oksana laughs at something Petr says, head back, exposing the skin of her throat to the light. Anna bites her lip.

            “I should take pictures,” Katrina says suddenly. “They’ve put me in charge of that.” She sets her champagne down and walks off to get the camera. The first thing she takes a picture of is Petr, Oksana, and two other people. Anna’s eyes drift from Oksana’s, then to her little false smile that tells the world she’s losing her patience, then to the front of her shirt. It’s a button-down, almost pastel in color, looser about the sleeves and flaring out slightly at the waist but tight across her chest, outlining her full breasts, something Anna had caught a glimpse of in her sitting room just three weeks ago. Underneath would be… what? A bra, but not a plain one; Oksana doesn’t seem the type to wear plain things. Or it could be nothing. She could unbutton her shirt in the privacy of Anna’s bedroom, bear her breasts to Anna’s wanting eyes—

            The flash goes off, and pictures with the group conclude. Oksana spots her and Anna turns her face down, to her glass of vodka. She sees a blurry Oksana shake hands with Petr, with the very same hand whose fingers had been inside her a mere week ago. Anna takes a too-large sip and cringes as it goes down. There’s a little bit left.

            “Saving that for me?” Oksana says when she joins Anna.

            “It’s for the adults.”

            “I am one.”

            Anna sighs, offers Oksana the glass when no one is looking. She downs the last of the vodka as if it were tea. It makes the creature in Anna’s gut stir even more. Oksana gives the glass back and Anna says, “I need a cigarette.”

            Outside the meeting room, the hotel is silent, the lack of noise sounding almost like soft static in the inner ear. The hotel has a garden just off the lobby. Its doors are open, letting in the cold air, and when Anna steps into the array of plants and winter flowers she shivers, and folds the collar of her coat up so that it’s partially covering the back of her neck.

            Oksana hadn’t followed her but it’s just as well; seeing two people slink away would rouse suspicion, even though other couples had done it well before. They’re out here too, talking on the concrete benches, legs lit by floor lights, torsos and faces shadowed. Anna finds a bench that’s mostly hidden in darkness and sits, the icy cement immediately soaking through the barrier that is her coat and slacks. She fingers a cigarette from its pack and puts it between her lips and lights up. She wishes her earlier thoughts would flicker into nonexistence, and yet there’s some pleasure about them, something she can’t quite pull away from.

            Her cigarette is half-smoked when Oksana emerges from the hotel, a glass of rose-colored punch in her hand. She finds Anna easily and sits beside her, close enough that Anna can feel the heat of her but far enough to be considered polite. Anna smells her drink, sweet, fruity, with a hint of—

            “Did you sneak vodka in that?” Anna murmurs.

            There’s a small smile on Oksana’s face. “Absolutely not,” she replies, and takes a sip.

            “You’re a mouse,” Anna says, fondly, and shakes her head in disbelief.

            In the garden, the world is quieter. A French love song floats from the meeting room and through the open doors; traffic rushes by, a river of its own, hidden behind a brick wall. Between them are their hands, and Oksana’s fingers weave their way between Anna’s. Anna squeezes it, holds it tightly, and then Oksana is bringing her hand to her lips.

            “Don’t,” Anna whispers, but the kiss lands anyway, soft, warm, slightly wet. The smack of suction that follows reverberates throughout the garden.

            “It’s dark,” Oksana says.

            Anna grinds out her cigarette on the bench, leaves the butt there in favor of cupping Oksana’s face as the distance between them closes. The kiss is soft and lingering, perhaps even hesitant; she hopes Oksana won’t taste her heart. Anna sighs when their lips part, moans quietly when they meet again. She opens her mouth, accepts Oksana’s tongue, and then—

            “Anna?”

            She gasps, pulls away from Oksana to look around her. It’s Katrina, standing at the doors leading to the garden, looking for her.

            “God,” Anna whispers, straightening her jacket, her hair. She grabs her cigarette butt, long cold, and, after trailing her fingers across Oksana’s shoulder, makes her way to the doors. “Sorry,” she says when she’s in Katrina’s line of sight, “had to get out for a minute.”

            “They’re wanting a group photo,” Katrina says, looking apologetic. “Do you mind?”

            “Not at all.”

            Katrina goes in first. Anna glances over her shoulder, to the bench, but Oksana is already gone.

            Back inside, the noise has grown louder, and the music has changed from a love song to something with more rhythm. Anna poses patiently with everyone who wants pictures, talks to the students whom she hasn’t seen in a while. She’s aware of Oksana on the other side of the room, a glowing wallflower raising her spiked drink to her lips.

            A little after nine o’clock, Katrina stands on the makeshift podium and announces that the awards will be starting. A hush crawls over the room and someone turns the music down. She first thanks everyone for coming out, extends that thanks to the staff of the hotel, and then invites the teachers up to the podium in alphabetical order so they may present awards and certificates to their students. She takes their pictures and they step away and Anna climbs onto the podium after being handed the awards for her three students.

            “I can talk to a room full of students,” she says, “but talking in front of you all is different.” Scattered laughter, an encouraging smile from Katrina. The first two awards are for Petr and Larisa: Outstanding Translation and Most Improved. They accept their awards to applause and pose for their pictures.

            “And the last is for Oksana Astankova,” Anna continues, holding the framed certificate to the crowd. “Extraordinary Interest, for her extraordinary interest and outstanding talent in the French language.” More applause, and Anna gestures for Oksana to join her. She does, if somewhat reluctantly, taking the framed certificate, smiling at the lens Katrina points at them. People shake her hand, tell her they’re surprised at her talent because of its unexpectedness.

            “How much longer?” Oksana asks.

            “Only a little while,” says Anna.

            “How much do you want to bet I can steal the vodka from under their noses?”

            Anna chuckles, leads Oksana away from the podium and to a well-lit corner with a hand at the small of her back. “You’d do it effortlessly.”

            “Was this pointless award your idea?”

            “Oh, don’t say that. And it was mostly mine, yes.”

            “ _Extraordinary Interest?_ ”

            “I suppose you can burn it, if that’s what your heart desires,” Anna says.

            “My heart desires my spiked punch,” Oksana says, and takes her framed award with her to go fetch it.

* * *

 

 

            “Pull over.”

            “What?” Anna says, worry twisting her stomach. “Are you going to be sick?”

            Oksana points to a part of the street that’s almost completely dark and Anna parks sloppily, quickly throwing the car into park and unbuckling her seatbelt, leaning over the CD compartment in search of tissues. “I swear I had some here—” Two hands grip her upper arms and propel her roughly to the other side of the car, right into Oksana’s lap, and lips crash into hers. Anna freezes, caught by surprise, but then begins to kiss back, sighing into it, cupping both sides of Oksana’s face. “You actor,” she murmurs, and kisses her again. Oksana’s fingers work on the buttons of her dress and when it’s halfway open Anna pulls away, says, “Wait, the car, it’s running…” She reaches clumsily over and turns the key so that the car is off; the air almost instantly gets colder. Anna feels like a teenager, practically making out with Oksana in the passenger seat while her dress is opened and left to hang at her sides. She moans when hands cup her breasts, squeeze them; Oksana undoes the clip at the front of her bra and her nipples stiffen in the cooler air. She takes one into her mouth and Anna’s hips twitch, already moving against Oksana’s thigh. Oksana bites softly, just a little pressure, but it makes Anna whimper, breathe, “Shit,” and so Oksana does it again, moves to the other, bites that one too, and then her hand is between Anna’s thighs, over her underwear.

            “You curse a lot for someone who is religious,” Oksana says. Her breath is short too, voice huskier.

            “It’s not against Him, it’s allowed.”

            “What were you thinking of, in there?” Oksana’s whispering now, stroking her so lightly, it’s not enough. “What did you want?”

            Anna’s eyes had traveled to the front of Oksana’s shirt when the girl wasn’t looking, and she’d imagined her breasts. Imagined Oksana unbuttoning her shirt, wearing nothing underneath it, thought of pressing kisses to the skin she’d glimpsed three weeks ago, thought of her nipples, if they were sensitive, if she liked them touched or licked or bitten. She must take too long to answer, because Oksana pinches her; it makes Anna thrust her hips, makes her gasp loudly. “You,” she says. “I was thinking of you. Please.”

            Oksana hums, pinches her again, then slides her hand into her underwear. Her fingers do nothing but stay. “What about me?”

            Anna’s forehead falls onto Oksana’s shoulder. She sounds like she’s sprinted miles around the school. She feels like a pressure cooker. She takes Oksana’s wrist, tries to get her to do something but Oksana tugs it away and a pathetic moan escapes Anna’s lips. “Oh, god, I thought— I thought of you topless. I want to see you…” Fingers stroke her, pressure light.

            “Not tonight,” Oksana murmurs. “When did you first have those thoughts?”

            “T-the opera and… three weeks ago.”

            “Because of my dress?”

            “Yes.”

            “And because you saw down my shirt?”

            Anna nods. A finger presses inside and she groans, tilts her head until her mouth meets the side of Oksana’s neck, kissing there. It’s soft and warm and tastes like her perfume. She nibbles, gets rewarded with an intake of breath, another finger sliding in to join the first. They don’t curl, just stay straight. “Please, I can’t…”

            “What else were you thinking?” Oksana’s voice is low, breathy; she must be strained too, keeping her want in check. Her other hand is curiously missing but Anna can’t pick her head up just yet. “Tell me, or I leave you hanging.”

            “Your hands, your mouth, how I want you to kiss me all the time…” Finally, Oksana curls her fingers and Anna shudders, hips chasing the touch. It goes on for a minute, a slow sort of torture, until Oksana brings her free hand to her own mouth, licks her middle finger, and trails it down Anna’s back and underneath her dress, lower, pressing— Anna freezes, hands balled into fists, squeezing Oksana’s shirt between fingers and palm, head finally flying up. “I…” she begins, but her tongue fails her.

            “You’ve never done this.” A statement, said gently.

            Anna shakes her head. She admits, “Max… wanted to.” Her heart will be missing from her chest soon, and her skin will feel like she’s just had a shower. “I’m not supposed to… it’s not…” Oksana kisses her softly, the softest yet. And her eyes, when Anna looks into them, are dark but gentle, understanding.

            “It’s nice.” She licks her lips. “Trust me, Anna. I know what I’m doing.”

            Anna believes her, has known that since she saw Oksana between Augustine’s knees, since the kiss in her bathroom, since the first time they were in bed together. And the way the fingers of both Oksana’s hands stroke her feels lovely, and so…

            She takes a breath, shuffles closer, and gives Oksana a deep kiss. Permission. Their lips are inches from each other when Oksana starts to slowly press into her and pauses. Anna whimpers, fists getting tighter; Oksana kisses her again, whispers, “Relax. I need you to be still for this.” Another kiss. “I won’t hurt you.”

            “But you’ll ruin me,” Anna says, a laugh escaping in a fit of nervousness.

            “I will. Right now. Okay?”

            Anna nods.

            Whatever words she wanted to say get turned into a loud moan when Oksana moves both hands in sync. She buries her face in the curve of Oksana’s shoulder, almost embarrassed at how loudly she must breathe, how needy she sounds. She feels so full, she’s close to death. It sends fireworks through her body and it feels like they’ll explode in the car, tip the thing over. The windows are fogged, obscuring the world outside, making the darkness look almost blue. No one will see this, and she hopes no one walks by the car, else they’d hear her pleasured cries.

            Oksana shifts her fingers, applies more pressure with her palm against her. “Oh god, right there darling, there…” Oh she won’t last longer. It’s too much, the fingers inside her, the jolts Oksana’s palm sends into her gut, hearing Oksana’s breathing, the sounds of her own enjoyment. “Oh god oh god I can’t…”

            “Right now,” Oksana says, kissing her. “Look at me.” She does, forces her eyes open, forces them to stay. “ _Tu es incroyable._ ”

            One more thrust, another praise in French, and it’s the moment Anna tumbles. Oksana’s fingers guide her through it. The orgasm seems to last forever, a new kind of wave crashing against her but getting smaller, until finally she collapses in Oksana’s lap, trembling. The cold air cools the sweat on her skin, feeling pleasant, sending gooseflesh sprouting. She shivers when Oksana withdraws her hands carefully, gently, shies away when Oksana starts to kiss her breasts. “I can’t,” she whispers. “Too much.”

            “These were my nicest jeans,” Oksana says.

            Anna laughs. “I’m sorry.”

            “Where are your tissues?”

            “In the back. Under your chair.”

            “Can you move?”

            With effort, Anna slides back over into the driver’s seat, but doesn’t have the muscles to fix her clothes. Oksana stares as she cleans her hands off.

            “You stare so much,” Anna says.

            “You’re beautiful,” Oksana tells her. “Especially when you orgasm.”

            Her face heats up. She doesn’t know what to say to such words. She grabs tissues and wipes the insides of her thighs, dries the sweat on her forehead and chest, and fixes her bra, buttons her dress. She feels light, like she’s floating, but chilled too, as if doing something so sinful, so surprising and new, had plunged her into a half-frozen river. She starts the car but doesn’t fasten her seatbelt or put it in drive.

            “You liked it.”

            Anna nods. “Yes,” she murmurs. It seems to be all Oksana wants to hear.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. This is taken from Jean Cocteau's 'The Holy Terrors (Les Enfants Terribles),' translated into English by Rosamond Lehmann in 1957. The book itself was published in 1929.


	12. A Double Life

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for not updating for two months; I'm on holiday from college and chapter 12 finally came together. Amazing things happen when papers aren't kicking your ass to Jupiter. This chapter is not as intense as the others and I do hope it's a nice momentary change; it takes place all on the same day.
> 
> Thank you to Dani, as always. This chapter is also dedicated to lexie_hart; happy holidays to you and to all my readers xx

That Saturday, Anna lingers in bed for longer than usual. Upon waking, she stretches her arm to the other side, expecting to feel Max or Oksana but finding neither. Her heart sinks for a moment when she feels the cold sheets. Oksana is at home, in her shithole; Max left yesterday for Moscow and won’t be back until tomorrow night. There is grading to do and final exams to write but they all feel so daunting; she rolls over, towards the window where sunlight is streaming through, lets herself slip back to Thursday night. There is a day and a half’s distance between then and now and yet it feels like a well-remembered dream, otherworldly and concrete, defined by sharp moments: A stolen kiss in the cold garden. The spiked punch. A moment of exquisite sin in the car.

            She buries her face into the pillow as warmth bubbles underneath her skin, shame and something else. She’d done it, hadn’t she? Given Oksana _permission_ to do it, even. How full she’d been, then, how tightly strung…

            “The thing about sin,” a pastor had said, long ago, “is that it feels good. It gives us pleasure, it gives us satisfaction. We have to resist this. We have to trust in God to lead us away from sin and let me tell you this,” he’d sat down on his stool, looking very serious. “A life lived for God rather than for sin is a life filled with much satisfaction.”

            Forgive me, she prays. Forgive me.

            For it had been pleasurable, she’d _liked it_ , for Christ’s sake. She remembers the moment as if it were thick syrup, how slow it was, and Anna feels the want pooling, red-tinged thoughts blooming like luscious roses in her brain. If there were to be a next time, it wouldn’t be in a car.

            Getting out of bed is slow work but eventually she manages to drag her tired body into the shower, dress, and get breakfast made. She grades while she eats, keeping her thoughts at bay, other truths that are now coming to light. A small but devastating one surfaces just as she finishes writing notes on a paper that’d come from her advanced class: Double life. Most commonly seen as a literary trope, a character lived one life by day and another by night, trying their damnedest to keep the ropes separate but somehow they always got knotted. They lied about where they were, who they were meeting at events, took opportunities when a certain someone wasn’t around. Anna had lied about going with Katrina to an opera. When Max was away Oksana lived in her apartment, ate food in her kitchen, slept in her bed, gave her sexual pleasure. It’s how it starts in the books and the movies, those innocent things, and whoever is leading that double life wants more and more of the second one until it’s too much and everything crumbles.

            What sort of life am I living now? Anna wonders, staring at the red pen that looks, in the half-grey sunlight, like bright blood. Will mine crumble? Do I push Oksana away?

            But there was no doing that, she knew. It would be impossible. Anna sees her at school and outside of it and wants her and Oksana is such a demanding girl that to push her away would be to have her push back twice as hard. Like the first night they were in bed together, when Oksana had showed up unannounced at her door, mad with lust. It wouldn’t be so simple to tell her “I can’t see you anymore.” Oksana would say, “But you want to keep seeing me” and it wouldn’t be a lie.

            And, Anna admits, she wants to keep seeing Oksana, as wrong as it is. She likes her, is fascinated by her, wants to know her better, ask her questions. She likes spending time with her. There’s a different sort of pleasure that comes with Oksana’s company, not just when they’re in bed but when they’re outside of it, like at the Honor Society’s holiday party. She was happy to have Oksana there even if the girl didn’t enjoy herself as much as Anna had hoped. At least not until the end.

            By the time Anna gets to writing the final exams the morning has bled into afternoon and she realizes she’s missing Oksana. Indeed, it’s possible to miss a presence too. She’d been imagining Oksana sitting in a kitchen chair, or on the loveseat, watching Anna write the exams or reading one of the French books, her sock feet tucked underneath her. Max isn’t here. She can do as she likes. So she calls her.

            _“I think this is starting to become a thing,”_ Oksana says when she picks up.

            “Habits start after twenty-one days,” Anna says. She chews a nail, taking in Oksana’s silence. She asks, “Are you doing anything?”

            _“Trying to complete your latest translation. You assigned a pesky one.”_ There’s the sound of a pen being set aside.

            “You’ll thank me.”

            _“Do you want me to come over?”_

An hour later Oksana steps through her door, wrapped in a dark brown coat and a navy scarf, hands tucked into the pockets to keep them warm. Anna doesn’t kiss her hello but offers her tea and a slice of cake that Max had made Friday afternoon before leaving.

            “I hate winter,” Oksana says. “People talk about snow like it’s magical but it’s white shit.”

            “It makes for good pictures,” Anna says, handing Oksana a mug of tea. She moves papers from the kitchen table and onto the coffee table in the sitting room. “Would you say the same if it snowed in Paris?”

            “Snow is shit no matter where you are.”

            “Have you always hated winter?” Anna says gently. Oksana averts her gaze, her face becoming stony.

            “You must like it if you think it’s good for pictures,” Oksana says.

            “I tolerate it,” Anna says, “but that doesn’t mean I sometimes wish I lived somewhere warmer.” Oksana is silent, her hands wrapped around her mug, lost in thought. Anna worries her question might’ve struck a nerve, reminded Oksana of a point in her childhood where she began to associate winter with something terrible. Anna sits, murmurs, “I’m sorry if I’ve offended you.”

            Oksana shakes her head. “You didn’t.” She finally takes a sip of tea. “You’re asking the wrong things.”

            “What are the right things?” She wants to know. They’ve been seeing each other for a good while now but still Anna feels like she knows so little about the girl sitting in front of her, with her dark hair hiding the left side of her face, the grey light making her look both a pleasant sight and someone who is far away.

            Oksana takes a breath. “I thought you wanted company.”

            “You’re here now.”

            “In bed,” Oksana clarifies.

            “We don’t always have to meet there, Oksana,” Anna says, but her body already feels warmer at the mention. She feels a smile tugging at her lips despite the seriousness hanging over the room and Oksana’s eyes are on her, browner because of her coat, slightly steely.

            “What’s funny?”

            “Nothing.” The smile breaks free; she hopes it’s fond. “I just have a feeling you talk better in bed, that’s all.” Anna can’t read Oksana’s face but her eyes seem brighter, more alert. Anna sighs, “Come here.” Oksana sets her mug on the table, does as she’s told. Anna takes her hand. “You can tell me what the right things are. Or something you’d like me to know, maybe not right away but in your own time.” She brushes the back of Oksana’s hand with her thumb, not missing the attentive gaze on the movement, like Oksana is surprised to receive such tenderness. “I just… I want to know you.”

            “Why?” Oksana asks.

            “It seems only proper.”

            Oksana is silent, her teeth worrying at her lip. Then, “I’m taking you to bed.”

            It’s surprising and blatant, Anna can say nothing back. She only stands, lets Oksana walk them to the bedroom, their hands joined. There, they kiss, a tender sigh before it quickly becomes passionately messy. Oksana unwraps herself from her coat and scarf, letting them fall to the floor; underneath she’s wearing a dark blue sweater and jeans.

            “Sit,” Oksana says against her mouth. Anna settles on the bed, still unmade from this morning, while Oksana stands at the foot of it, untying her boots. Next to come off are her sweater and jeans, underneath which are plain black underwear. Still the sight of her, nearly naked, makes Anna inhale. She wants to tell Oksana she’s beautiful but the words are trapped in her throat like flies in honey. Oksana crawls over the bed and into her lap, kissing her, whispering, “Take off your clothes, Anna.”

            It’s intimate like this, Anna thinks, her fingers trailing across bare skin as Oksana kisses south. She loves how soft Oksana is, how touching her skin is like stroking fine cloth. She wishes, now, that Oksana was naked, so she could wrap her in her arms and know what holding her felt like, how different it would be from holding Max. The only holding she can do for a good while is Oksana’s head between her thighs.

 

            “Do you like women?”

            Their wineglasses lay waiting on the nightstand, half-drunk, rims sticky with lipstick. Anna grinds her cigarette out in the ashtray and tugs the sheets a little higher. She replies, “I don’t know,” remembering the blonde teacher in the staff parking lot, the one she’d felt no stirrings for. Then she says, “Maybe not.”

            “But?” Oksana sits up, a rather amused expression mixing with her alertness. “You don’t like women but you’re with me.”

            “I like you.”

            “I’m a woman.”

            “I can’t explain it,” Anna says, reaching for her wineglass, taking a sip. “Do you like women, Oksana?”

            “Yes,” she replies, almost immediately.

            “Men?”

            “Yes, but I don’t necessarily like to be with them.”

            “In a romantic way, you mean,” says Anna, and Oksana nods. “You’ve had other romances, then.”

            “Not like this.” Her voice is soft, the fingers that trace Anna’s cheek even softer. This… affair—for that’s certainly what it is now—has gone on for weeks, more than a month. Oksana continues, “My affairs don’t last.”

            Anna sets her wineglass aside. “Why not?”

            “I get bored.”

            It stings, just a little. Anna glances out the window, at the half-dark world with blue clinging to the sky, a change from the earlier grey. She can’t help but ask, “Does that mean you will get bored with me?”

            Oksana tugs her back, cups her face between her hands. “I want you, Anna,” she says, “all the time. Right now.” She kisses her softly, whispers, “I can’t say that about anyone else.”

            Unable to say anything, Anna pulls her closer, burying her fingers in Oksana’s soft hair, kissing her. The confession is weighty, the words stirring something within her. Feelings close to the ones she’d felt when Max told her he was in love with her.

            A hand slips underneath the sheet and between her thighs and she opens herself willingly.

            Afterwards, spent, she catches her breath against the pillows, watching Oksana pull her jeans back on. She fetches her sweater from the floor and tugs that on too. Her cheeks are pink and strands of hair stick out wildly from the top of her head and behind her ears.

            “I should go,” Oksana says. “Before your husband gets home.”

            “He’s in Moscow,” Anna says suddenly, making Oksana freeze in the doorway.

            Oksana turns back around, her expression surprisingly tender. “You’re like an astronaut,” she says. “Always floating away.” She comes back over, climbs onto the bed, straddling her. “It must be the orgasms I give you.” A kiss, and it goes on for a while.

            “Stay,” Anna says when they part. “We’ll have dinner. Maybe finish the book we started.”

            “Let me have you first,” Oksana says, kissing her neck.

            “You already did,” Anna protests, but there is that desire resurfacing, faded from before but still demanding, wanting to be satisfied. She says, “Take those off, then,” gesturing to Oksana’s clothes, and pulling her close once she’s tossed her sweater and jeans to the floor again.

 

            Dinner is pierogi with borscht and wine, warm food in the warm kitchen. There isn’t much conversation during, just fleeting comments about school and exams and expectations for the spring semester. Then, when they’re scraping the last of the borscht from their bowls, Oksana says softly, “I don’t like winter because it reminds me of where I’m from.”

            “When you were young?” Anna says. Oksana nods. She remembers Oksana has a history of violence—could it have started then, one winter in her childhood? A hand raised against her and her reply? Something that happened in a snowy schoolyard with another student? Anna sets her spoon down, staring into the empty bowl. “I’m sorry,” she says after a minute.

            Oksana shrugs. “It was long ago.”

            “But it still affects you.” Not knowing exactly what to say, Anna rises, begins to clear the dishes from the table. “Would you like to know a trick I learned?”

            “What?”

            “If something reminds me of something else, a bad thing, I’ll teach myself to associate it with something different. Something good. A nice memory, or a song. I know you’re not much into music,” Anna adds, turning on the sink and adding dish soap, “but you can think of something else.”

            “I didn’t know I’d be having dinner with a sage,” Oksana says.

            Anna laughs. “You’re welcome.” She finishes the dishes in silence and as she’s drying her hands Oksana says, “Wait here. I have something for you.” She heads to the bedroom, where her coat still is. Anna returns to her chair, waits. Oksana comes back, bearing a small white box with a rose-colored ribbon tied around it in a small, neat bow.

            “What is this?” Anna asks, not wanting to accept it when Oksana sets it in front of her.

            “For you.”

            “I couldn’t, Oksana; it’s… expensive.” But Oksana’s waiting, an expectant look on her face, and so Anna takes the box, unwraps the ribbon, opens it carefully. She tips it into her hand and a vial of perfume slides out. She already has the scarf Oksana gave her a while ago, hidden away. She shakes her head, mostly in disbelief. “You didn’t have to, Oksana. Your scarf was enough.”

            “Try it,” Oksana says. “Please.”

            She applies the perfume to the insides of her wrists and is rewarded with a floral and vanilla smell. It’s lovely, something wintry. The small script letters engraved in the bottle say _Vanilla Rose._ She holds her wrist out to Oksana, asks her, “What do you think?”

            Oksana leans to her, inhales. She replies, “It’s nice.”

            Later, when night has truly fallen, they trip into bed again after Oksana comes back from showering. Her wet hair tickles Anna’s bare skin when Oksana has her face burrowed in the curve of Anna’s shoulder, fingers buried inside her.

            “You’re restless,” Anna gasps.

            “You haven’t told me to stop,” Oksana counters, not unkindly.

            Anna holds her closer, pressing into her. “Please don’t.”

            Afterwards Oksana turns away from her, lying on Max’s side of the bed. Anna smokes and then flicks the lamp off, settling just behind Oksana, reaching out to stroke her hair. It’s still damp and smells sweet. And her skin, when Anna finds her shoulders, is incredibly soft. She could touch it forever and not get bored.

            “You can undo it, if you want,” Oksana says. Anna’s hands are on her back, just above the clip of her bra. She unclips it with nervous fingers, feels the expanse of skin in its entirety, fascinated. Max would never be this soft. Then, on an impulse, she presses her lips between Oksana’s shoulder blades, leans her forehead there, sighing. I feel such fondness for you, she wants to say, but she doesn’t know how Oksana will take those words, and so she keeps them to herself.

            Oksana turns onto her back, her outline barely visible. Anna drapes an arm over her stomach and murmurs, “Stay.”

            “If that’s what you want,” Oksana says.

            Anna settles on her own pillow, closes her eyes, and falls asleep to Oksana’s breathing.  


	13. A Crossroads

Anna wakes at eight in the morning to find that Oksana’s eyes are wide and on her. The sun has risen and the light is yellow instead of grey.

            “Good morning,” Anna says, reaching for her. “How long have you been up?”

            “About two hours.” Oksana’s fingers trace lines on Anna’s bare arm. “You were dreaming something stressful.”

            “What makes you think that?”

            “The little crease there.” She punctuates the statement by running her thumb between Anna’s brows. There’s something tender about her eyes, Anna thinks, and she’s unsure if it’s the light playing tricks on her or if it’s real. They lay in warm silence for a while, hands wandering, lips meeting on occasion and though Anna recognizes the look of want on Oksana’s face, nothing goes further.

            “Did you mean what you said last night?” Oksana asks. “You like me?”

            “Of course I do,” Anna replies, cupping Oksana’s face in her hand. “Very much.”

            “Would you stay with me?”

            Anna sits up then, the sheet slipping. She pulls it back up, feeling suddenly shy. She asks, “What are you asking me?” Oksana’s eyes are wider, expectant, shining with something Anna can’t identify and realization hits her. “Good Lord, you’re… you’re asking me to leave with you. Is that it?” Oksana doesn’t give an answer. Anna shakes her head, puts it in her hands. “Oksana, you know I can’t do that.”

            “Even though you like me _very much_?”

            “I’m fond of you, I really am, darling, but that doesn’t mean…” She trails off, something like sadness settling over her. The morning had started off so warm. She would’ve accepted Oksana’s offer of sex and then she would’ve made them breakfast if the conversation hadn’t taken this turn.

            Oksana’s voice is harder when she says, “You’re choosing him.”

            “You don’t understand,” Anna says, almost snapping. The shifting sheets brings her to attention. Oksana’s dressing quickly.

            “I understand just fine.”

            “Oksana, don’t. We can talk about this civilly.” But it’s no use. Oksana’s pulling on her boots and her coat and scarf, her face a stone mask, eyes harder than Anna has ever seen them. She leaves the bedroom, heads for the front door. Anna calls after her, but the door slams shut.

 

—

For the first time in her life she’s dreading going into work. Because Oksana will be there and the short-lived but charged conversation from yesterday morning will hang over their heads, knives poised, waiting to fall. Oksana is young and different and doesn’t understand that when married you devote yourself to that person, you choose that person. Anna _needs_ her to understand and so, as she applies mascara in the mirror, she thinks she ought to try. She’ll approach her after school, when the classrooms and hallways are empty. They’ll talk there, make up, maybe see eye to eye on this. And then they can resume as usual. Have a lesson. Have their passionate sex. If, Anna thinks, things go well today.

            But somehow, while the day unfolds and Anna flits back and forth between the library and her classroom for her morning classes, she half-expects to see Oksana somewhere, half-hidden in darkness, kissing someone else. She doesn’t see hide of her and counts it as a blessing. For the remainder of the morning her thoughts are of circles and of how best to approach Oksana, because judging by yesterday’s quick exit, her mood may very well be volatile.

            Then, after an uneventful lunch eaten indoors, Oksana is in class and their eyes meet when Anna walks in. Her face is impassive, unreadable. Anna swallows, bows her head. She feels guilty for yesterday even though some rational part of her knows she’d done nothing wrong. It’s only in Oksana’s view that she’s being unwise. When she begins today’s lesson—which is nothing more than review, since next week is the week of final exams—her mind is half-present. She keeps looking at Oksana, hoping to see something other than stoniness, hoping to see interest or even desire but there is nothing. What must she be feeling? Anna wonders, writing on the board now. Rejection? Because of Anna’s honesty? And how could she possibly expect Anna to choose her when she’d already chosen someone, had done so twelve years ago when Max slipped the ring onto her finger?

            The conversation eats away at her while the class works on their last writing assignment. She wonders if she should’ve lied, said yes. Perhaps it would’ve been better. She could back out of the arrangement anytime she wanted. But would it have wounded Oksana more? There would be excitement on Oksana’s part, planning, talking of places to go—surely she wouldn’t want to stay in Russia—and then Anna would have to tell her the truth. And she would be destroyed, more than she is now. God, Anna wants to take her into her arms, apologize but explain, hope it’s enough to soothe the anger. When class ends she asks Oksana to stay behind and she does, long enough for Anna to say, “Oksana, about yesterday…”

            Oksana shoulders her bag, mutters the French equivalent of “Fuck it” and storms away.

            “Oh, god,” Anna sighs. She says her planned words aloud: “I’m sorry about yesterday, but I’m married, and what you don’t understand is as much as I like being with you, I’d still choose him.”

            Oksana is, apparently, a difficult person when angry.

 

            The apartment in the afternoon bears all its usual noise: pipes groaning, footsteps from neighbors above it, voices rising with laugher or exasperation from down the hall, yet to Anna it’s silent. Oksana’s presence may not be very loud but it’s a certain kind of noise, demanding when it wants to be. It’s strange coming home to it, enjoying the warmth by herself, with no lessons or strings of French sentences or reading or hurried sex before Max gets home. It should be reprieve but it isn’t. She lounges on the loveseat with an open binder in her lap and assures herself for what may be the millionth time that she’d done nothing wrong. That there’s a possibility to talk to Oksana civilly about everything but Anna doesn’t want her anger. It’s a little frightening, how cold she gets.

            “How do I soothe you?” she wonders aloud. “How do I make you understand?”

            Her phone is on the coffee table, screen black. She could call her. Set something up for tomorrow, or the day after. Talking in person would be better than over the phone. But, she reminds herself, reaching for a cigarette, Oksana may not want to see her. It might be best to give it a day or two. Anna hopes she’ll come round.

            Later, she wakes to warm fingers brushing strands of hair from her face. It’s Max, knelt by the loveseat, his face unbelievably tender it makes her chest ache. She reaches for him, cups his face, strokes it with her thumb. She says, “You’re scratchy.”

            “I was thinking I’d let it grow for a while,” he says. “Might be a little warmer.”

            She smiles. “We’ll see.”

            He kisses her palm. “Rough day?”

            “Oh,” she sighs, sitting up, moving the binder to the coffee table. “It’s Oksana. She’s—” She cuts herself off. Double life, she thinks. Keep the second out of the first.

            “What?” says Max.

            “Nothing. It’s nothing, I promise. The approaching holidays are rough for people like her.” It’s a flimsy excuse. She thinks Max buys it. She leans and kisses him. “Could you get dinner started?” She wants to shower, have a little more time to herself, and then she’ll spend time with him.

            At dinner Max talks about work, the recent stresses, the big changes that have everybody on edge. “There’s talk of opening a smaller office in St. Petersburg,” he says. “I may have to go up there.”

            “Soon?”

            “Two weeks. But I’ll be home for Christmas, at least.”

            “I haven’t even thought of what to get you,” Anna says. “What do you want?”

            “I’ll make you a list,” he promises.

            Silence passes. At last Anna sets her fork down. She says, “Max, I… I’ve been so absent with you.”

            Almost immediately he says, “You haven’t.”

            “Yes, I have. I…” She shuts her eyes, tries to make the sudden glass go away. “It’s work. I’ve been putting all my effort and attention there and hardly any of it is saved for you.”

            Max takes a deep breath, exhales it slowly. “I wouldn’t be lying if I told you your devotion was taking away time,” he says gently, “and though it’s not always a good thing to indulge so… fully in work, you’re doing it out of goodness.” He reaches across the table and takes her hand. “You help people, Anna. I’ve known that since the day we met. You’re helping your students. Oksana, even.” He’d said it almost reluctantly. “Just be careful.”

            His mention of goodness makes tears spill over. None of this is good. It’s exciting and new and terrible and she can’t stop. She’s too fond of Oksana. And it hurts even worse because he trusts her fully and she wants to be able to tell him but knows she can’t. It would ruin them both. “Oh, Max,” she says, and he gets up, kneels in front of her, hugs her. Anna breathes him in, his clothes that smell like an office, the shampoo he’d used this morning still lingering in his hair.

            “You should go to bed,” he murmurs when the tears have subsided. “I’ll get this.”

            Anna nods. Sleep would keep everything at bay, for a little while. She manages, “I love you so much,” and holds onto him until he rises.

 

—

Anna calls her on Wednesday afternoon. The skies had turned steel grey and opened with rain during lunch hour and was still coming down, sounding like TV static. Anna settles in the kitchen, where the noise is quieter, the line ringing, and ringing.

            Then, _“What do you want?”_

“Oksana,” Anna says, half-surprised that she picked up at all. “Please don’t hang up.” A pause. “I’m sorry for Sunday. I want to talk about it, at least, but not over the phone.”

            _“Where?”_ Oksana asks after a minute.

            “There’s a café not far from here,” replies Anna. “Does Thursday work?”

            _“Mm-hmm.”_

“I’ll see you—”

            The line clicks off.

 

—

Come Thursday, the rain is heavier than ever and the temperature plummets. There is talk of snow in the evening. Oksana will truly be miserable then, Anna thinks, stepping into the warm café. Lunch hour was long ago but there are still people lingering, soaking up dregs of warmth before they have to go back out into the cold.            

            She’d called Oksana on the drive over; she’d agreed to meet Anna here at 2. Even through the noise that’d filtered through Oksana’s end of the phone Anna heard the reluctance to her agreement. She hopes there will be no scenes.

            At the table—which is near the back, where it’s warmer—Anna orders them both coffee, unsure of Oksana likes it. She wraps her hands around the mug while she waits. She thinks she understands Oksana’s emotions, how they’re most likely rooted in jealousy. When you like someone that much, when it—possibly—borders on love, you want their attention to be on you, their devotion and their time, and when it’s not, the jealousy is acidic. But, she thinks, is there something darker lingering underneath it? Had Oksana been different (and she hates to think of it this way) she would’ve come out by now and apologized. But maybe Anna’s words had felt a lot like rejection. And it wasn’t necessarily rejection, but… it was picking a side.

            Anna loosens the scarf at her neck, the blue one Oksana had given her, trying to get more air. She’s nervous, if she’s being honest. The moths in her stomach pick up their pace when she sees Oksana slip through the front doors, her brown coat unmistakable, an umbrella folded and dripping in her hand. She looks around the room, over shoulders; Anna raises a hand and they spot each other.

            “Hello,” Anna says when Oksana arrives at the table. She sits without a word, propping her umbrella against the chair’s leg and loosening her black scarf. “I ordered you coffee. I hope that’s fine.”

            “I like coffee,” Oksana says. “You want to talk?”

            “Let’s eat something first.” This meeting might run into dinner, when Max will be home, but she’ll make an excuse that there was a last-minute staff meeting. “I think,” Anna continues, “soup is good for a day like today.”

            Yet throughout the meal there is very little conversation. The silence is leaden. Oksana doesn’t seem as relaxed. It reminds Anna of when they first met; closed-off, stiff. When it becomes too much, Anna says, “Oksana, there’s something I need you to understand.” She doesn’t set her spoon down. Even though Oksana isn’t looking directly at her, Anna knows she has her attention. “I am sorry about Sunday. It’s eaten me up since, and I’m sorry if, to you, it felt like rejection. I can’t help that.” She inhales a slow breath. “You are young,” Anna continues gently, “and marriage may seem like a foreign thing to you, but you need to understand that’s where my devotions lie.” A pause, and Anna nearly reaches for Oksana’s hand on the table but stops just short of it. “Oksana,” she says, and the girl finally looks at her fully, “I mean it when I say I’m fond of you.”

            It takes a minute for Oksana to nod.

            Anna asks, “You’ve nothing to say?”

            “What do I tell you, Anna?” Oksana replies. “What do you expect me to tell you?”

            “Your side, perhaps. Or… or your feelings.” She wants a cigarette but to smoke it she’d have to leave the table and go out into the cold.

            “You already know my feelings.”

            “Do I?” She’d meant to ask it gently but it’d come out as a snap.

            Oksana leans back in her chair, body relaxed but eyes a mix of things. “This is starting to sound uncivil,” she says. “You might raise your voice soon.”

            And it would’ve been out of nervousness, or being overwhelmed, Anna thinks, but not out of anger, even though there’s something like it making her limbs warm. She shakes her head, stirs her soup. “No, you’re right.” She takes a few bites even though her hunger is gone. She says, after a while, “I want you to tell me things. I-I want your trust.”

            “What makes you think you don’t already have it?”

            Anna can say nothing, too flattered, too overwhelmed. She only shrugs.

 

            “Why did you ask me to stay with you?” Anna asks. They’re in her car, pulled up outside Anna’s apartment complex. The temperature has dropped again and darkness falls over the city. Through the wet and fogged-up windshield Anna thinks she can see snow flurries in the streetlight’s projection.

            Oksana’s reply is soft. “Don’t you know?”

            Something like horror spreads through her insides, freezing everything. “What’re you asking me?”

            Oksana doesn’t answer.

            Anna sighs, frustrated, and turns the car off. “Why don’t you come up?” she says. Max had called on the drive over to tell her that he would be home close to midnight because of a short-notice meeting. “We can talk where it’s warm.”

            Once there, Anna puts a kettle on, trying to gather her thoughts while Oksana disappears into the bathroom. _Don’t you know?_ What on Earth does that even mean? And does Anna know Oksana’s feelings about her? She knows Oksana likes her, is fixated on her but—

            Oh no.

            No.

            She strangles the edge of the stove, shuts her eyes. Get a grip, get a grip, get a _fucking_ grip…

            It’s not impossible. It’s unexpected, in some ways.

            When Oksana comes back, Anna says, “I’m bewildered.”

            “What do you mean?”

            “You want me to… to pick a side. And not only that, you’re… you’re…” She can’t say it. It’s right there and she can’t.

            “You think so highly of me,” Oksana says softly, but her voice is anything but gentle, “and you think I am gifted with _extraordinary interests_ ,” she practically marches into the kitchen, closing in on Anna, caging her against the stove, “and I am not your favorite.”

            Anna shakes her head. The air is close. Her lungs feel tighter and her breathing, once calm, is increasing. “Darling,” she says, “that’s—”

            “I think you could have a change of heart,” Oksana interrupts, and she places her hands on Anna’s waist, the grip firm. “I also think you like me too much to reject me fully.” She leans closer, almost kissing her.

            “I can’t, Oksana.” It means many things. Yes, Anna can’t fully reject her. No, Anna can’t be with her, not in the way she desires. No, they should be talking, not kissing, not anything… “Darling,” she whispers, “you know I can’t. I… thought you understood—”

            Oksana kisses her then. It’s rougher, impatient. Their lips part once and Oksana says, “I can give you everything he gives, Anna, but better.”

            Everything is screaming. “Let’s not do this now,” Anna manages. Lips move to her neck and she wants so badly to pull away…

            “Better sex, for starters,” Oksana continues, like she hadn’t heard Anna’s protest. Her knee moves between Anna’s thighs and Anna grips her shoulders, intending to push her away. “I was so considerate with you. I catalogued every reaction. I made you discover you liked a kind of sex you weren’t supposed to have.”

            The first time, the encounters after that, the car, come rushing back and a sound of distress escapes Anna’s mouth, a mix of intense shame and arousal.

            “I don’t think your husband can say the same,” Oksana continues, her lips travelling upwards, to Anna’s ear, the movement hurried. Her fingers are digging properly into Anna’s hips now, a bruising force; the anger she must’ve been trying to keep in all week is slipping out. “I can give you much more interesting things. Make your whole life that way, keep it spontaneous.” She takes Anna’s earlobe between her teeth and bites down.

            Anna’s fingernails scrape against Oksana’s coat, feeling something close to rage at Oksana’s words because how dare she assume that about Max, how dare she say anything at all.

            “Oksana,” Anna whispers, “let’s not… This isn’t talking…”

            “Oh, I think we’ve both had enough of that.” She kisses Anna again and this time Anna only hesitates a fraction of a second before kissing back. She wants this girl too much.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was a bit rocky, wasn't it?


	14. A Trial

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been three months. I apologize. The story kind of lost its footing for a little while and I had to do some re-organizing. I also apologize for how short this chapter is.

The last weeks of the semester pass by quickly. Final exams are written, taken, handed in. Grades are submitted after two tedious days of working on them. She sees Oksana a final time before they have to go their separate ways for the holidays, on a Wednesday afternoon when the temperature is in the single digits. The biting but fresh air blows in soft gusts through Anna’s cracked bedroom window. Oksana sits on the sill, wearing only underwear, her gaze caught by something Anna can’t see.

            “We’ll see each other after,” Anna says after a moment. She reaches for another cigarette but doesn’t light it just yet. She notices the slight line of Oksana’s mouth, the frown tugging at the left corner. “You know I’ve other obligations.” She sighs when Oksana says nothing. She doesn’t want this to end on a sour note. “Come back to bed, darling,” she murmurs, setting her cigarette aside, flipping Max’s pillow over to fluff it. Oksana obeys, padding quietly over, slipping smoothly under the blankets. Anna cups her face, allows Oksana to kiss her. She says, “You’ve been awfully quiet.”

            Oksana shrugs. “Do I always have to be chatting?”

            “Even quieter people have worrying silences.” Anna shakes her head. “It’s nothing.”

            “You’ll miss me,” Oksana says, tucking a strand of hair behind Anna’s ear.

            Anna kisses the inside of her wrist, tasting warmth, smelling a faint tang of perfume. “Yes,” she says.

            “Sure you’ll survive without me?”

            Anna smiles. “I’ve dealt with worse absences.”

            Oksana hums. Her eyes have a soft unreadableness about them, but Anna knows her slightly parted lips mean desire. Oksana whispers, after a moment, “You want my hands on you.”

            Your hands, Anna thinks, when Oksana is properly astride her waist, your mouth, your tongue, your teeth…

 

—

Then, on a Thursday, she’s enclosed in her packed car, waiting out the two hour drive to her mother’s house in the passenger seat. The day is silver, the clouds white as smoke, little snow flurries falling from them, looking almost like cigarette ash. She tilts her head away from Max, towards the window, swearing she can still smell Oksana and that horrible elated night in the cloth of the seat even though it was days ago. Anna presses a palm to her thigh, right over the mark Oksana had left in it last Wednesday.

            “You shouldn’t’ve,” Anna had scolded, staring at the blooming red on her skin.

            “He won’t see it,” Oksana said, and traced it with her tongue for good measure.

            By now the mark would be less red, would have hints of blue or yellow, and though it’s more on the inside of her thigh than anything—close to… _there_ —she still worries that Max will glimpse it. What if she’s coming out of the shower and he’s there at the sink? It would be plain, then—

            A hand settles on her knee and she jumps, grips Max’s wrist, holding him away.

            “I’m sorry,” Anna begins.

            “What?” Max asks. The tone of it means many things. Confusion. Worry.

            Anna lets go, sets her hand back over the mark. “Nothing.” Oksana had made it just before Anna came. She’d thought, at the time, that it was done in pleasure, but now it seems to be something else entirely.

            Max’s hand hovers, just a moment, and then returns to the wheel. He says softly, “It’s always nothing.” He inhales, exhales. Anna doesn’t look at him, afraid of the emotion she’d see. “Is it Oksana?” he asks. “Is that what this is about?”

            He won’t see it. Won’t know. But is he as unobservant as Oksana claimed he was?

            Anna replies, “No.”

            Max sighs. He isn’t an angry man, has never been. There is a mix of tenderness and irritation in his voice when he says, “I think a little holiday would be good for you. Just… get away from it all. Worry about everything else when we get back.”

            “Maybe you’re right,” Anna says quietly, turning back to the window, to the world giving way to speckles of countryside.

 

            Even if you’ve been away from home for years, returning to it is always strange. It’s like stepping into nostalgia, Anna thinks, embracing her mother in the entryway. There’s the smell of her, still the same—her clothes, her hair—and the smells of the house gathering at the door. Woody, spicy warmth.

            “I see a few more greys,” her mother says, cupping Anna’s face between her hands. “Stressful year?”

            “I’ll tell you all about it,” Anna promises, shuffling past her mother and into the house, away from the cold and the clouds that’re growing heavier with snow. The house is still the same too. There’s the tiny kitchen where she’d brought her first boyfriend home, where he’d snuck her a first kiss. There’s the parlor where the news about her father had been delivered. There’s the garden, behind the French doors, where Anna spent so much time with books, with brooding and anger and, eventually, Max. And there’s her childhood bedroom, turned into a guestroom mere weeks after she’d gone away to university, its size the same, the color changed from its sky blue to a plain cream, the furniture darker than the light oak she’d grown up with, the bed bigger. It’s welcoming but strange; every wall and surface drips with memories. She lugs her suitcase onto the bed and joins it, falling onto her back, sighing, gazing at the smooth ceiling.

            Anna wonders why she can’t say it’s Oksana weighing her down and not just work. She’d told Max big things that’ve felt like secrets in their twelve years of marriage, even before they were engaged. Things she couldn’t’ve told her mother. He’d even asked, “Shouldn’t you be telling your mother this?” and she’d said, “She wouldn’t understand.” Would Max understand the weight of Oksana? Maybe part of it, but there is so much he doesn’t know. So much he shouldn’t know.

            The mark on her thigh throbs like it’d done when it was fresh.

 

            They spend the late afternoon preparing dinner, shuffling through the kitchen, exchanging conversations of work to catch up on what was missed. Anna learns that her mother’s year hasn’t been all that interesting; it’s been filled with all the usual things. “You don’t want to hear it,” she says, pointing the potato peeler between Anna and Max, who is thumbing through an old photograph album at the kitchen table. “Tell me about school, Anna.”

            “You make it sound as if I’m still there,” Anna says.

            “Technically you are.”

            The kitchen is small and the heat from the stove makes the space warmer. Anna rolls up her sleeves, continues slicing carrots. She says, “We had the holiday party this year. For the Honor Society.”

            “I thought you weren’t going to have those for a while.”

            “We had to skip last year.”

            “Any tables catch fire?”

            Anna smiles. “Not this year.” Other things had.

            _You’ve never done this._

She clears her throat, slides the plate of sliced carrots to her mother’s side of the counter. “It was the usual thing.”

            _I’m not supposed to…_

“Did anyone get awards?” her mother asks.

            Anna nods, her tongue suddenly leaden. It’s too hot in here. It’ll only get hotter. She sets the knife aside, excuses herself from the kitchen. Fetches her coat from the bedroom and her cigarettes and lighter from her purse.

            “I need a minute,” she says apologetically, and steps into the garden outside.

            The snow has just started to fall, the flakes tiny and soft, half-sticking to the ground. They’ll get thicker as the night wears on, and they’ll wake up to a world blanketed in soft white. And the temperature is bitter, yet still Anna sits in her favorite corner of the garden, on the sturdy wooden bench that has a history of happy laugher and broken-hearted tears. The start of a habit and the nurture of it. She lights a cigarette, wraps her coat tighter around herself, wishing for Oksana’s scarf still hiding at the bottom of her suitcase—which she’d found while unpacking and didn’t remember putting in—wondering if Max is saying anything. Would it be about work? Home life? Old stories? Recent troubles? Surely he wouldn’t talk about Oksana, Anna hopes. That matter has bled into one life enough, as much as Anna has tried to stop it; it doesn’t need to stain another.

            She wonders, briefly, where Oksana is, and regrets that she hadn’t thought to get her anything. The guilt crawls; she stifles it with a drag. “Damn it.”

            The door opens and closes; her mother’s slippers crunch over the cement and gravel and she settles slowly beside Anna, wrapped in a well-worn colorful but thick robe. “It’s cold,” she says, a question hidden underneath an observation. _What’re you doing out in such bitter weather?_

“It was getting stuffy back there,” Anna says.

            “You’ve never complained of it before.”

            She hums, exhales more smoke. “I suppose it comes with getting older.”

            “Talk about growing old when you’re in your sixties,” her mother says.

            Anna holds the cigarette between two fingers, observes its burning end, the way it slowly eats the paper and tobacco. “They say these age you faster.”

            “Probably why you started smoking so young. Always wanting to be older, always longing for independence and travel.”

            “Because you wouldn’t allow that.”

            “You had everything you needed,” her mother says.

            “I do now,” Anna counters, but doesn’t wholly believe it. She has everything she wanted. Need is something constant, something both large and small, something that waxes and wanes. The definition always changes. She needs cigarettes because they’re calming. She needs routine for a semblance of control. She needs Max because she loves him. She needs Oksana because she wants her. She presses the bruise with her palm, swears she can feel Oksana’s tongue tracing it. Anna sighs, puts her head in her free hand. “I feel shaken,” she admits quietly.

            “What do you mean?”

            Anna grinds her cigarette out on the bench’s metal arm and fumbles for another, manages to light it. She says, “I’ve been fortunate to have good students most of my career. There’s quiet ones and loud ones and everything in between, you know how it is.” She takes a deep drag. “I have a troublesome one this year.”

            “Troublesome?” says her mother.

            Anna smiles. Her cheeks and nose sting. “I mean it in the fondest sense.” She hesitates. It might not hurt to tell her mother of Oksana, if only to paint a half-detailed portrait. “Her name is Oksana,” Anna says slowly. “She’s… one of the quiet ones, but there’s just this… brilliance about her. Brilliant and troubled—or haunted,” she adds, more to herself than her mother. “She’s my best student.”

            “Haunted,” her mother echoes. “That’s a new one.”

            “It’s her history.” She’s starting to shiver but hides it by tucking her arms against her body. Anna wishes the smoke would warm her body, curl into every crevice. “I shouldn’t divulge it.”

            A soft breeze rustles the branches of the naked trees. The snowflakes are getting thicker. Her mother asks, “And what makes this girl so troublesome?”

            Anna chuckles. “She’s rude.”

            “Really?”

            “Oh yes. And literal. Stubborn. But funny.” She shakes her head. “It’s a bit of an oxymoron, isn’t it, having a troublesome best student?”

            “You must like her,” says her mother, “if you’re insistent on teaching her.”

            And seeing her, Anna thinks, in every sense of the word. “I do,” she murmurs, and it’s the most she’s admitted. A proper shiver runs through her, from more than just the cold. “I think we’d better go in.”


	15. Displays

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think I'm taking three months between chapters because I don't want to get to the end of this thing where all the knob-chopping happens... Maybe. But life has also gotten in the way, and I do apologize for the wait. Hopefully an almost 6k chapter makes up for it. 
> 
> Thank you for your patience xx

Anna wakes on Christmas morning to find that someone—probably Max—has opened the curtains in the bedroom and that snow is falling in slow, fat flakes. The whiteness projects into the room, not harsh but soft, and Anna lounges for a while, feeling strangely content. Her mind wanders to two hours away, wondering what Oksana’s Christmas entails. I’ll have to get her something, she thinks, and smells the scents of breakfast wafting from the kitchen. It’s unlikely that Oksana has gotten gifts from anyone.

            There’s coffee waiting for her on the kitchen table, still hot, along with a plate of honey-glazed sausages. Her mother’s car had been gone from the driveway, and so it’s only her and Max. She can see him in the parlor next to the tree, a photo album balanced on his knee, flipping through it with such delicacy, like it’s an important artifact.

            “Happy Christmas,” Anna says, so he can hear her.

            “Happy Christmas.” He holds up the album and points to a picture of her when she was about eight, her hair in half-tamed pigtails, her outfit as red as apples. “I love this picture.”

            “You like my embarrassing childhood photos?”

            “It’s a good picture.”

            “It’s terrible.”

            “I’ve never told you this,” Max says, his smile growing, “but if we went to the same school as kids, I would’ve crushed hard on you.”

            “No,” Anna says around a laugh. “I was horribly shy. Nobody crushes on shy kids.”

            Max shakes his head. “I’d beg to differ, though I’d been attracted to all kinds of women before I met you.” He shuts the album, comes to sit in the chair next to Anna’s.

            “What kinds of women?” Anna asks.

            “Confident ones, shy ones… Artists, writers, teachers. But,” he puts his hand on top of hers, “they all had one thing in common.”

            “What was that?”

            “Kindness. Almost to the point of selflessness.” His hand is so warm, so tender. “That’s why I love you.”  

            “Maxi.” She cups his face, strokes his cheek with her thumb, just under the lens of his rectangular glasses. “That can’t be the only reason.”

            “It isn’t.” He smiles. “What kinds of men were you attracted to before you met me?”

            “Oh…” Anna blows through her lips. “Ones that weren’t very good for me.” They had good hearts, she remembers, and there was a gentleness about some of them that Anna found charming, and their promiscuity excited and scared her, their eagerness to try things in bed that would make her mother faint. But they hadn’t worked out in the end, and then Max came along and things felt like they were finally in the right order.

            “A goddamn gentleman,” her mother had said the first night she’d met Max. It was the only time in her adult life that Anna heard her mother curse. It meant, indefinitely, that he had her whole approval.

            “You were good for me,” Anna continues. “And _to_ me. And selfless.”

            “I’m selfish sometimes,” Max says.

            “Everyone is.”

            “No, I am.” He squeezes her hand. “Sometimes I find myself wishing you weren’t so occupied… so that we could spend more time together.”

            “We have time now.” She kisses his forehead. Her mother will be gone for another half hour. She recognizes the tender want in Max’s eyes and feels the same warmth bloom in her veins. Ignoring her breakfast, she stands, still holding onto Max’s hand, and lets him lead her to the bedroom. He locks the door behind him. They share a smile. It feels mischievous, doing this in broad daylight when the front door could open any moment.

            “Not exactly what I meant,” Max says, helping her with his shirt buttons, “but nice enough.”

            “I’m sorry,” Anna says.

            “Don’t be.” He pulls her closer, gives her a soft kiss on the mouth. “I want this.”

            She knows, can feel it when she unzips his jeans. Anna tugs them off, removes her own clothes while Max steps out of his jeans and underwear, leaving his shirt unbuttoned and open. Anna steps back to him, kisses him, tugs him with her to the bed until they can lie down. Max runs his fingertips over her skin, between her breasts, his touch careful, not possessive or desperate like Oksana’s would be. Anna suppresses a pleasured chill at the thought of Oksana and wraps her legs around Max. He kisses her, slips carefully inside her, a long sigh escaping his mouth.

            “It’ll have to be quick,” Anna breathes.

            He nods. “All right.”

            It takes all of ten minutes. The headboard bangs the wall, sounding like a hammer. Sex isn’t any less quiet with Oksana, but headboards certainly don’t sound like they’re going to break through drywall. Anna shuts her eyes, wills the girl away, wanting to take in Max’s shudders as he comes.

            Anna holds him while they lie together. Her own want feels like an itch. She doesn’t dare reach between them to take care of it, doesn’t want to spoil it. She just lets him catch his breath until he’s composed enough to pull out and dress.

            “I can re-make breakfast,” he says.

            Anna laughs. “Sure.”

            “Want honey on it?”

            “Yes. I’ll be there in a minute.”

            Anna sighs when the door is shut. Curses herself for comparing Max’s intimacy with Oksana’s and then for her hand sliding south to indulge the thoughts. This time it only takes three minutes before she’s curling into her palm and muffling her ecstasy in her pillow.

            She only remembers the mark on her thigh afterwards and feels a stab of fear that Max had seen it. The fear is quickly replaced by relief. He hadn’t noticed it at all. He’d been too occupied with making love to her.

            “Thank you,” Anna whispers, and knows it’s to God.

 

            The day passes with lunch and gifts. There aren’t many gifts, only things that had been on lists—which were very short.

            “You never know what you want when you get older,” her mother says, crumpling wrapping paper so that it’ll fit into a trash bag, “because it already feels like you have everything.”

            “So much to look forward to,” Anna jokes, supposing that her mother is right, in a way.

             A large Christmas dinner follows. Snow builds up until they can’t go anywhere, and so they’re trapped in the house until the 27th. No new snow falls on that day, and the roads have been cleared. She and Max say goodbye to her mother in the entryway, promising to visit more often, something that can’t wholly be kept but still lingers in the air.

            “Be careful with that student of yours,” Anna’s mother says, taking her hand.

            “Don’t worry,” Anna assures her. “You just have to learn to deal with the stubborn ones and they’ll shine like all the rest.”

            “I think you were made for this sort of thing, darling.” She kisses Anna’s cheek, and Anna’s heart soars childishly in her chest at the words.

           

            Anna steps into the apartment complex with a sigh, eager to leave the luggage for the morning and shower and crawl into bed. She lugs her suitcase up the stairs, unlocks the front door, and comes face to face with a pile of mail. At first she groans but the negative feelings quickly dissipate when she kneels and sees the familiar handwriting. _Oksana._ Almost the entire pile is from her. Quickly, Anna scoops them up and stuffs them into her coat pocket, leaving the regular mail on the kitchen table. Her fingers ache to tear the paper and read the words Oksana left waiting underneath but she forces patience. Wait until morning, she tells herself, hanging her coat in the wardrobe. They’ll still be there to wake up to.

 

—

The letters, Anna realizes, read much like a diary. She pores over them in the cactus chair, a cup of tea and a slice of cake her company. She smiles at some of the words, thinking Oksana writes like a lover from the 19th century. It’s mostly the penmanship that makes her think those thoughts, but the content of the letters does too.

 

_25 th December, 2010_

_Dearest Anna,_

_I thought of you today and where you spend your holiday, and whether you’d like gifts. I should like to get you one, but shopping for you proves a little difficult._

_I hope you think of me, too, and that we miss each other equally._

_Oksana_

_26 th December, 2010_

_My dear Anna,_

_Holidays are long without you. I have been sitting here thinking I’ll soon die of boredom. I’d rather be trapped in your room—at least then it doesn’t feel like I’m in prison._

_My only entertainment is thinking of when I’ll see you, and what we’ll do and how we’ll do it. I hope soon. I long for you._

_Oksana_

            The letters date back a few days from the 25th, their content similar but no less lovestruck. Anna reads them twice, thrice, stirred at the words, thinking of Oksana’s kisses and hands and the intimate sex, thinking, finally, that she ought to go out and buy a gift for the girl. It’ll distract her from the need. She folds the letters and carefully puts them back into their envelopes, and then she stows them away in her lockable box underneath the bed.

            There is life outside the apartment, and though she shouldn’t be amazed by the simple fact, Anna is. She’s been living in a bubble filled with Oksana and school and they’ve somehow trapped her in a routine where she hardly has to step outside. She wraps her cerulean scarf tighter around her neck—the one Oksana had gifted her. The air is biting, and there are snowflakes falling from a white sky. The streets and sidewalks match it. But for all the cold, Anna is warm and alive with nervousness.

            She’s buying Oksana a gift.

            In the past, Anna has given gifts to students, though never on an individual basis. She’d give an entire class cake made from her own recipe, or American-style cookies that some students complained were too sweet but ate anyway. She never gave out cards or any other form of present. (She’d receive them every now and again, and it feels terrible to think that those gifts—given out of kindness—are less significant than the ones Oksana has given her.)

            It had taken all this morning to think and browse her own bookshelves for Anna to come to a decision on the gift. She couldn’t splurge on clothes because she didn’t know the kinds of things Oksana liked to wear; her sense of fashion seemed to range from supermarket jeans and secondhand tops to more expensive outfits, with varying but dark colors. But she remembered Oksana had taken a liking to Jean Cocteau’s _The Holy Terrors_ and decided she’d buy Oksana a book in French.

            The bookshop she’s walking to is downtown, not far from the café Oksana had met her at when they talked about devotions. It’s a new and used bookshop with a café at the back that serves coffee, tea, sodas, and pastries. The scent is pleasant when Anna walks through the doors, welcoming the warmth and familiarity of the place. She buys a coffee first thing and carries it with her as she heads to the section where the French authors are.

            She’d stumbled across this bookshop on accident when she first began teaching. She’d been looking for teaching materials—textbooks and the like—so that her classroom wouldn’t be empty and she wouldn’t be one of those teachers who was severely unprepared, and this bookshop had come like a miracle from heaven. They didn’t have a wide range of textbooks, but those could be ordered. Instead she’d found her favorite French authors and some anthologies that she thought would be good for her students to read from and translate, and has been a bit of a regular customer since.

            Anna browses for a good forty-five minutes, tracing the spines of books, picking them up to view their contents, puzzling over subjects Oksana might like. Stories or poetry? Fiction or nonfiction? She holds onto an anthology of French poetry and another of stories that take place in Paris, and after finding nothing more, decides these are the ones.

            Anna wraps them when she gets home. She chooses a simple brown paper and, once the books are wrapped, ties a bow around them with a crimson ribbon. She writes _To Oksana_ in permanent marker and stores the present underneath the bed so that Max won’t ask her about it.

 

—

The 29th rolls around and the snow has let up a little. From the bedroom window Anna can see small flakes, barely visible against the grey-white sky, and wet streets, bundled up people, and crisp exhaust from the cars that drive past. Good but cold walking weather, she thinks, leaning further into the window to see if she can glimpse Oksana as she makes her way to the front entrance of the apartment complex.

            Oksana had called, clearly bored; Anna could tell from the tone of her voice. But cautious, too, afraid she was interrupting something. “You aren’t interrupting,” Anna had said, and asked Oksana how her holiday was.

            _“Boring,”_ was Oksana’s reply.

            Then Anna had asked her to lunch.

            She wonders what she’s going to tell Oksana when they first see each other. “I missed you” feels like an inappropriate understatement.

            Oksana rounds the corner, wearing a white and pink patterned coat, a white umbrella in one hand and a large gift bag in the other, dark jeans and boots, and a charcoal grey button-down whose collar is turned up against her neck. Anna waits to leave her bedroom until Oksana has gone through the main entrance. She throws on her coat and gathers her purse and waits by the entrance for Oksana’s knock.

            _Rap rap._

“Hi,” Anna says, opening the door wide to let Oksana in. “I like that color on you.”

            “Thank you.” Oksana hovers, looking around the apartment, and sets her large gift bag on the coffee table. “Will your husband be home?” she asks.

            “Not until later.”

            Oksana nods. “I’ll leave it there.”

            They drive downtown to a café Oksana hasn’t been to before, sitting by a window, nursing cups of coffee and munching on bread while they wait for their bowls of soup. Anna asks, “What made your holiday boring?”

            “I had nothing to do.”

            “Not even schoolwork?”

            “That’s worse than nothing.”

            Anna stirs more cream into her coffee. “I got your letters.” They share a glance. “They’re very sweet. Your French has improved.”

            _“Merci.”_

_“De rien.”_

            “Did you go somewhere?” Oksana asks.

            “I spent Christmas at my mother’s.”

            “How was it?”

            “Nice. Quiet.”

            “Did you miss me?”

            “More than I should have.”

            A soft smile spreads across Oksana’s face. “You’ve got it bad,” she says in a halfway decent American accent. It’s the accent that makes Anna laugh.

            They walk around the plaza after lunch, gazing at shop windows, going into them if they feel so inclined. Oksana holds colored outfits up to Anna and studies them with artist’s eyes, frowning when something doesn’t turn out right, nodding approval when it does. None of the outfits are bought, just filed away for later. They stop by a coffee shop to get another drink before heading home.

            Once there, Oksana hangs her coat on the arm of the loveseat and makes herself at home on it while Anna fetches her present from underneath the bed.

            “It’s for you,” Anna says, holding the wrapped books out to her. Oksana takes them with careful hands, unwrapping them the same way. She turns the books over in her hands. Anna says, “I thought you’d like some French books to read. You liked Cocteau, so…”

            “They’re nice.” She sounds earnest.

            “You haven’t really gotten presents, have you?”

            Oksana’s answer is a subtle shake of her head. Then she sets the books aside and points to the bag. “That’s for you.”

            Inside the bag are two boxes: one large rectangular one and a small circular one. Anna joins her on the loveseat, opening the big box first.

            It’s an expensive black blouse, skirt, and lace bra. She blushes the entire time she touches them. It’s a ridiculous gift, Anna thinks, opening the small box now, but not in a bad way.

            “Good Lord,” she says. The small box’s lid drops to the floor. It’s a necklace with a silver chain and a teardrop-shaped pendant with an emerald on it. “Oksana…”

            “Try them on,” Oksana says, leaning back into the loveseat. “Let’s see how they look.”

 

            She doesn’t recognize herself. The woman staring back at her looks like her, but smokier in the all-black clothes, almost—dare she say it?—sexy. The blouse, buttoned only halfway, shows off the lace bra, whose pattern is intricate floral; it barely leaves anything to the imagination. The skirt is a thinner kind that shapes the curves of her hips and her thighs. And to complete the look is the silver necklace with an emerald teardrop pendant. Oksana fastens it with gentle fingers and when she lets it go the pendant is at home between Anna’s breasts. She strokes the gem; Oksana’s fingers join hers.

            “Don’t you see how wonderful you look?” Oksana murmurs. They’re both gazing in the mirror.

            “I don’t look like… myself,” Anna says, but can’t deny there’s something empowering about these ridiculous comfortable clothes. They feel like they were tailored. And as impractical as the bra is, she likes the surge of confidence she’d felt as soon as she’d put it on. Anna imagines walking into the bedroom on a night Max is up late reading and displaying the garment, watching him take it in, tell her earnestly, “Beautiful,” and reach out to stroke the lace, right over her nipple. An unrealistic thought, but not so much when Oksana is doing the stroking.

            “You look,” Oksana says, kissing Anna’s neck, “irresistible.” The fingers touching the pendant move lower, trace just above her heart, and for a sharp moment Anna wishes they’d slip into her bra but she releases a heavy breath and, with quick, nervous fingers, does up the buttons on the blouse. As flattering as they are, these clothes aren’t her. Perfume and scarves were one thing; lace bras and expensive work outfits are another.

            She removes herself from Oksana’s arms, makes her way to the kitchen. What in the world is she thinking, accepting these things from Oksana? _Noticeable_ things! Clothes that were certain to make pairs of eyes fall onto her, and not just out of appreciation.

            Anna gets the vodka down, in desperate need for something stronger than the French red wine. It’s a bottle that was bought six years ago, a silly idea of experimental drinking, and never touched again. The first sip burns going down; the second is more manageable.

            Oksana leans against the kitchen’s doorframe, her posture casual. “You must be affected if you’re drinking that,” she says.

            “Do you want some?” Anna asks, pouring a measure into a glass.

            “Did you not like them?”

            Anna shakes her head. “It’s not that. I…” Another sip of vodka. “I can’t wear clothes like this.”

            “Why not?”

            “They’re too nice, darling.”

            “What are you afraid of when you wear them?” Oksana questions. “That more people will see you like I do?”

            Anna laughs. “You see me like this?”

            “You are beautiful,” Oksana says, her voice soft but defensive. “These compliment that.”

            Anna finishes the rest of the vodka in her glass, asks, again, “Do you want some?”

            “If you insist.”

            So she pours another measure, gives it to Oksana, who stands close enough that Anna feels the heat of her.

            Then, when Oksana’s glass is empty, Anna says, “Get me out of these.” It seems almost a shame to ask that such nice things be removed, but Oksana obeys, starting with the blouse, folding it carefully once it’s off and placing it onto the countertop before moving on to the skirt. The zipper’s path is short; it ends at Anna’s tailbone. Oksana’s knuckle graces there, awakening the Honor Society’s holiday party and hot, shameful desire. Anna’s hand tightens on the counter and Oksana stills, her fingers bunched at the end of the skirt, waiting to pull it down.

            “What?” she asks. Then, in a near-whisper, “Do you want that, Anna?”

            Anna inhales a shaky breath. “Where?”

            “Anywhere you want.” She tugs the skirt down, lets Anna step out of it; it joins the blouse on the countertop. “Just tell me.”

            The kitchen chair, the bed, Max’s cactus chair… all of it would be astride Oksana’s lap. But Anna ultimately shakes her head no.

            Once in the bedroom, Oksana hangs the clothes on the side of Anna’s wardrobe where her darker collection is so that the outfit isn’t obvious. Anna will have to hide the bra elsewhere. Shove it into a drawer. Or under the bed with the dust collection.

            They meet in the middle and Anna cups Oksana’s face in her hands, wondering how to say thank you, if it’s even possible.

            “You won’t give them away?” Oksana asks.

            “No.” They’re gorgeous clothes. They deserve to be observed again, only when Anna has a moment to herself. She can study herself in the mirror all she pleases, without feeling like there’s anyone waiting on her. She glances at the pendant. “I’ll have to hide this one.”

            Oksana bends and follows the necklace’s chain with her mouth, beginning at Anna’s pulse, kissing south until she reaches the pendant. “Why would you hide it?”

            Anna’s legs are weaker than they were a moment ago. She replies, “Someone might… steal it.”

            “Or because you’re ashamed to wear something so expensive.” Oksana kisses just below it, lips feathery warmth against Anna’s skin. Then she sinks to her knees. “I’ve picked things that compliment you.” She kisses a hipbone. “You do have good taste in color.”

            Anna reaches down, holding a side of Oksana’s face in her hand. The vodka she consumed earlier swims with butterflies, pools in her already weak legs with the arousal. She shuts her eyes, the better to feel Oksana’s mouth peppering her hips with kisses, the teeth dragging over the strip of skin just above her underwear. Anna breathes, “God…” Are they really going to stay like this? “Do something.”

            “Tell me.”

            “I won’t be able to stand much longer.”

            “Sit on the bed.” Oksana’s command is gentle. Anna obeys it, feeling steadier but only just, like she’s coming down with vertigo. Oksana says, “Tell me what you want.”

            “Kiss me.”

            It’s heavy with lust; anything but graceful. Oksana straddles her, pushes Anna into the mattress, and then retraces her earlier steps, even takes the pendant between her teeth, pulls at it suggestively. Seconds later she’s teasing one of Anna’s nipples over her bra. It goes on until Anna almost protests; she gets cut off with a hand finally sliding south and a finger slipping easily inside her. Anna moans, presses her hips into the heel of Oksana’s hand. She’d wanted this, in her absence from the apartment, had thought about it while at her mother’s house. She wonders if Oksana will recreate the mark on her other thigh.

            “You feel incredible,” Oksana whispers, in French. The rhythm she’s established is slower paced but the pressure of her finger shoots sparks through Anna’s body. She almost smiles at the words. A surprising context to see how much Oksana’s speaking has improved.

            Instead she says, “Your mouth,” and hates how the rhythm stalls for a moment when Oksana moves lower, slides her underwear off. She kisses Anna’s thigh once she’s between them.

            “Oh,” Oksana says, tracing the half-faded bite mark with a fingertip, “it’s healing nicely.” She kisses it too.

            “Darling…” Anna finds Oksana’s shoulder, tries to urge her higher. Oksana stays stubbornly in place, teasing, and God Anna needs it just a little higher…

            “Take that off,” Oksana says suddenly. She reaches up with her free hand, plucks at the lace of the left bra cup. “I want to see your breasts.”

            Anna reaches awkwardly behind herself; getting the thing off is a wrestle. She throws it aside once it’s off. “Please,” she says, truly desperate now, “do something… y-you can see…”

            “Lie back,” Oksana murmurs, moving higher at last. “Look at me. Watch what I do to you.”

            It’s delicate, at first, and for a moment Anna wonders what the purpose of watching is: To see her own reactions? To learn what Oksana does with her mouth, her tongue? Watch her hand clench in Oksana’s hair? Or to capture the moment her thighs start to quake?

            Oksana devours her passionately, Anna thinks, her head tilting back when Oksana puts her tongue inside her. The orgasm is quick, after that.

            “Come here,” Anna says, barely down, and weakly pulls Oksana up so that she can kiss her. Her mouth is wet. It tastes like herself. “Let me see you.”

            Oksana seems to hesitate before she asks, “You’d like to?”

            Anna nods. “I want to.”

            “Okay,” Oksana murmurs, kissing her once, and pulls away to stand at the foot of the bed.

            She bends and removes her socks, then straightens and begins with her shirt. She takes her time with the buttons, revealing slowly. First it’s a little triangle of paler skin above the collar of her shirt, then the tip of the triangle goes deeper, until it’s a strip framed by two sides. There is no bra. Anna swallows. Oksana takes the two sides, face both serious and bearing hints of hesitancy, and parts them.

            Beautiful is the first word that pops into Anna’s mind. Her breasts are full, paler because they haven’t seen the sun, nipples a shade of pink; her stomach is toned, her arms lean, though she doesn’t look as strong as she is when she’s gripping Anna by the arms or pinning her to a wall or to the bed. And her legs, when she gets her jeans off, are lean too, but shapely. Her underwear is black, hotpants, Anna thinks they are; practical, but in this context, sexy. It feels like she does nothing but stare for hours, her eyes only unfrozen when Oksana gets onto the bed and crawls back into her lap.

            “Your face is a tomato,” Oksana says, amusement coloring her voice and making her eyes crinkle.

            “You sound surprised,” Anna says. She’s keeping her eyes on Oksana’s face.

            “Do you want to touch me?”

            “Yes.”

            “You can.” Oksana sounds breathy, and her face is a little redder. “It’s fine.”

            Anna begins with her bare shoulders, an innocent place. She moves her hands up, and down, amazed at how soft her skin is, how toned the muscles underneath are. She traces Oksana’s collarbones with her fingertips, moves them lower, between her breasts. She leans up to kiss her, keeping it soft, before pulling back again to watch her hand cup a breast. Soft, firm weight in her hand, warm too; she blushes harder when she runs her thumb over her nipple, as Oksana had done to her. It stiffens from the touch, and she notices Oksana’s breathing has sped up. She wants to kiss her here. Wants to know what it feels like to have a woman’s breast in her mouth. But she’ll wait; there are other places to explore.

            She touches Oksana’s stomach and her hips and her thighs, lets her hands wander to the backs of them before finally leaning in and kissing Oksana’s neck. She moves lower and lower until she’s almost kissing where she wants, but she pulls back, stomach a knot of nerves. “I don’t know what I’m doing,” Anna says breathlessly.

            “Kiss me there.”

            Anna kisses the tops of her breasts first, can’t help but play the differences out in her head. It’s nothing like kissing Max, whose chest is rough with hair, whose body is harder than Oksana’s. Then she’s kissing a nipple, and Oksana’s hands find her hair, squeezing lightly; she licks it, too, and Oksana says, “Bite it.” Anna obeys and Oksana’s hips twitch just as a half-moan escapes her lips. “Harder, Anna; don’t be gentle.” She bites harder, gets rewarded with a groan. She moves to the other breast, does the same thing; the hands in her hair tighten. “Put your hand on me.”

            “Oh, god…” Her eyes travel lower, to Oksana’s underwear. “Do you want them off?”

            “It’s up to you. I can get off either way.”

            Anna exhales a long breath. Her hands shake when she hooks her fingers into the waistband and pulls the hotpants down to mid-thigh. So different, she thinks. Even here Oksana is herself well-kept. Anna’s hands shake worse and her breath becomes even shorter at the mere thought of touching Oksana here. “What… What do I…?”

            “Just your fingers,” Oksana says.

            Anna looks up, into Oksana’s eyes, and they are dark, predatory. A hunger that’s barely being held in check. It hits Anna in the gut, makes a sound of want push past her lips. She swallows and trails a hand up a thigh, slips it between them, and her fingers find silky, wet warmth. Oksana groans softly, murmurs, “That’s nice. Stay there for a second.” Anna strokes, explores, feeling her own want throbbing in time to her heartbeat. It’s very different than touching Max, who is hard, who Anna is used to, but unlike Oksana, his hips only thrust when she’s stroking him, or if he’s inside her. They almost never move when she first touches him.

            “Go inside, Anna,” Oksana says. She slides her fingers lower, breath trapped in her lungs, and they slide in easily and Oksana moans.

            “God,” Anna whispers. This is what it’s like. Wet heat, smooth, sensitive flesh, except if she curls her fingers—it earns her another groan and a tight hand in the hair at the base of her skull.

            “Don’t be careful with me. Fuck me. Think of how I do it.”

            She starts an unsteady rhythm, shuddering at the sounds, breathing nearly erratic now. She curls her fingers, presses harder with them when they’re sliding back out. Oksana is leaning over her, breath coming rapidly through her nose.

            “Good?” Anna asks.

            “It’s good.” Oksana reaches for her hand and presses Anna’s palm against her and she twitches. “Keep your palm there, lots of pressure. Let it rub.” She takes Anna’s other hand and sets it on her hip, and then her own hands are on Anna’s shoulders. Anna obeys. Oksana sounds unreal, so much better than she’d imagined; her breaths shudder and her moans are soft, the opposite of Anna, who can’t help but be vocal.

            “Harder, Anna.” Oksana’s head falls forward, hair mingling with Anna’s. “Move your… fingers to the right— _there._ ”

            “Shit.” Is this how Oksana feels, reduced to pure, raw nerves and awe at what being inside someone can reduce them to? Feels close to orgasming too even though nothing is being done?

            Oksana groans. “ _Merde_ , Anna…” Her mouth opens, captures Anna’s. “Faster. Go faster. I’m…” Their lips meet again. “I’m right there.” She cups Anna’s face and her breathing is hyperventilation and then— Oh god, her hand is wet and Oksana is gasping, hips twitching. Anna stares, body burning from the inside out, lip practically trembling from want and disbelief; she’d given Oksana an orgasm. Oksana has always stroked her through this part and so she does the same until Oksana stills and grabs her wrist, taking Anna’s hand out and away from her, taking Anna’s fingers into her own mouth to lick them clean.

            “Oh, my god…” Anna isn’t on Earth anymore. Her head is spinning.

            “I want to take you,” Oksana says between breaths, “just like this.” She’s licking slowly, savoring her own taste.

            “Please,” Anna says. She feels stretched thin, stripped bare, left with one want. Oksana places Anna’s hand back at her side, fixes her own underwear but takes Anna’s off, and her mouth is between Anna’s thighs. It’s slow, but she’s so strung out she won’t last. Oksana slips her tongue inside her. “Yes,” she says, and Oksana groans, throws Anna’s legs over her shoulders, does it again and again until Anna is arching into her. “Oh god, oh god…” And Oksana backs off, starts slower again. “Oh god, Oksana, you devil…”

            “You’ll like this too,” she says, and builds her back up, leaves her hanging until Anna begs.

            “ _Please_ , darling… please…” She feels like an opera singer wavering on a high note while the music fades, and her orgasm—so intense her vision swims with black and stars—is the ending crescendo and final symbol crash. She lays spread out, lets Oksana taste her, unable to move or feel anything but the soft kisses between her thighs. Eventually Oksana pulls away and Anna whispers, “Come here.”

            “You want to hold me?”

            “Come here,” Anna repeats. Oksana chuckles a little, crawls back over her.

            “I’ll indulge you.”

            Their bodies press together, skin on skin, and Anna wraps Oksana in her arms, lets her lay her head on her chest. She runs her fingertips over Oksana’s back, soft, hot, slick with sweat. She sighs. Such nudity feels wonderful, even if they’re in hell.  

**Author's Note:**

> I'd like to thank London Grammar for inspiring my sins, and to both viagiordano and Lena for their enthusiastic suggestions that I write this perspective in the first place


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